TAPE: EF02/0697 IN_TIME: 23:01:38 DURATION: 1:24 SOURCES: APTN RESTRICTIONS: DATELINE: Beijing - 18 August 2002 SHOTLIST: 1. Chinese audience applauding as they welcome physicist Stephen Hawking 2. Hawking entering the hall in wheelchair 3. Crowd of media 4. Close up Hawking 5. A Chinese boy standing up to see Hawking 6. Wide shot Hawking in wheelchair approaching podium on stage 7. Audience applauding 8. Tilt up Hawking on stage 9. Wide shot Hawking making speech 10. SOUNDBITE: (English) Stephen Hawking, physicist "Maybe we are the characters in the computer games played by aliens." 11. Close up screen showing cartoon of two aliens 12. Audience at the speech 13. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Vox pop, student from Qinghua University "He is restricted in many ways by his physical condition. It is so admirable for such a person to make so many contributions to science." 14. SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Vox pop, student from Beijing Youth Politics Institute: "To listen to the voice of the great master, will help us to make break throughs in our study so that we can make new progress. This is very important to our young people." 15. Hawking speaking with Alfred Nobel's photo on the screen 16. Audience watching a short film presented by Hawking STORYLINE: The possibility of parallel universes and humankind's precarious perch atop a thin bubble of matter just might have become dinner topics in Beijing, thanks to a visit by physicist Stephen Hawking. The renowned scientist, considered one of the world's most outstanding theoretical physicist, gave a lecture in Beijing on Sunday. He's in China attending an International Congress of Mathematicians, being held in the capital from August 20 to 28. On Sunday, about three thousand people, including Chinese and foreign scientists and teachers, squeezed into Beijing's International convention Centre to listen to Hawking's vivid address on a "Brane (correct) New World". "Branes" are derived from the word "membrane" and describe a multi-dimensional surface. They are tiny theoretical structures that, according to some scientists, may comprise the essential subatomic particles that appear to make-up the universe. Hawking, who is a maths professor at Cambridge University, came to prominence among scientists with his theories about the behaviour of black holes. He's achieved worldwide fame with his popular book on cosmology: "A Brief History of Time". Although he possesses a formidable intellect, Motor Neuron Disease confines him to a wheelchair and he has to speak using an electronic voice which he controls by computer.

TAPE: EF03/0277 IN_TIME: 14:44:10 DURATION: 5:21 SOURCES: APTN/Warner Brothers RESTRICTIONS: No re-use/re-sale of film clips without clearance DATELINE: Recent, L.A. SHOTLIST 1. Film clip 'The Dreamcatcher' 2. SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Lee - on preparing for their roles: "I took great pleasure in hunting for Beaver" SOUNDBITE (English) Timothy Olyphant: "Yeah it's Jason Lee - he had fun putting his shirt on this morning - I mean look at him, the guy is giddy." SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Lee: "I think you missed what I just said, but that's okay.'' SOUNDBITE (English) Timothy Olyphant: "I'm sorry, I wasn't listening." SOUNDBITE (English) Jason Lee: "No, I like Beaver...the character that I play. It was a nice..." SOUNDBITE (English) Tim Olyphant: "You know what the sad thing is? This is what it was like to work with him." 3. Film clip - 'The Dreamcatcher' 4. SOUNDBITE (English) Morgan Freeman: "This was an interesting undertaking on my part because most of the things I get to do are full of dignity and gravitas and all that kind of stuff and I'm a good guy. Here I get to play a guy who may or may not be a good guy, although I think he is a very good guy.He's dedicated to his mission and his mission is righteous." 5. B-Roll Morgan Freeman on set 6. SOUNDBITE (English) Morgan Freeman: "The problem with working in the freezing cold is that I'm really puckish about that - I can't do cold. It's more than I can actually handle. If the temperature gets below 66 degrees I'm uncomfortable." 7. B-Roll director on set 8. SOUNDBITE (English) Tom Sizemore: "Tom and I became good friends as I did with Morgan - the only two guys I really work with in the movie. And I sat next to Tom and Tom said 'hey Tom, how's this gonna work?' And I went 'don't worry, Larry said it's in his head' because I had asked Larry the same thing on the phone. I was the first actor to receive this script and I said 'is that a good thing?' and he said 'you should be flattered!' I went 'I'm flattered' and I was the first actor cast and then I read it and I said 'Larry, how is this going to work?' and he said 'don't worry, it's in my head - worry about it when under hill'. I turned to Tom and I said 'don't worry, Larry said it's in his head' and I heard 'Tom, no whispering in here', I went 'what? What are you talking about?' I love Larry, but he does do this stuff to you and I went 'I wasn't talking, I was responding to a question from Tom' and Tom Jane said 'yeah, Tom said to me how is this movie going to work?'. I said 'no, I did not!' and then he got up and told the entire cast, he said 'don't worry - it's in my head.' " 9. Film clip - 'The Dreamcatcher' 10 SOUNDBITE (English) Donnie Wahlberg: "I wasn't there on set all the time so whenever I showed up as Duddits I would always watch people watch me and they would all be like turning and taken aback by the way that I look, but I think that probably helped. It helped me to feel what someone like that may feel. Picture Duddits walking down the street in your neighbourhood - he'd probably get picked on by a bunch of bullies like he did when he was a child in the film." 11. Film clip - 'The Dreamcatcher' 12. SOUNDBITE (English) Thomas Jane: "It's really funny." SOUNDBITE (English) Damian Lewis: "If you're a guy who likes blood and aliens and gory scary stuff, come and see it. If you're a girl who likes humour and likes gentler character stuff come and see it because it's there as well." 13. Film clip - 'The Dreamcatcher' STEPHEN KING'S 'DREAMCATCHER' BROUGHT TO LIFE Sci-fi horror 'Dreamcatcher' is the latest adaptation of a Stephen King novel, based around a quartet of boyhood friends who have got together for a camping trip deep in the woods of Maine. Ultimately, they must confront an alien force and prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians. The four friends are played by DAMIAN LEWIS (TV's 'Band of Brothers'), THOMAS JANE ('Deep Blue Sea', 'The Sweetest Thing'), TIMOTHY OLYPHANT ('Go', 'Rock Star') and JASON LEE ('Vanilla Sky,' 'Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back'). Lewis received an Emmy nomination for his performance as Major Richard Winters in Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks' 'Band of Brothers.' In the new film, Lewis plays 'Jonsey,' a young man who has experienced premonitions, ever since being hit by a car. The bond between the four friends in the tale is threatened by the legacy of the crash and by other private demons. Clownish Beaver (Lee) has relationship problems; psychiatrist, Henry (Jane) is slowly slipping towards suicide; and Pete (Olyphant) is an alcoholic.But together, the friends must try to prevent the slaughter of innocent civilians by a military vigilante. Even more threatening - a being has taken control of one of their minds, and the group face an alien horror that could change the fate of the world. Jason Lee proved that his clownish behavior wasn't an act for the cameras when he was asked how much he enjoyed playing the part: "I took great pleasure in hunting for Beaver" The film also features three-time Academy Award nominee MORGAN FREEMAN ('Shawshank Redemption') in a departure from his usual roles. Freeman plays psychotic Colonel Abraham Kurtz, whose actions intersect with the four troubled men. His biggest challenge for the role was facing the extreme cold conditions of the Canadian location. Director Lawrence Kasdan ('French Kiss' 'The Big Chill) pulls together a tale that covers wild storm, alien invasion, plague, monster and mad colonel, having adapted King's novel himself with Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman. TOM SIZEMORE ('Saving Private Ryan' , 'Black Hawk Down') who plays Captain Owen Underhill, reveals that he had doubts about how the film was going to turn out "Tom and I became good friends as I did with Morgan - the only two guys I really work with in the movie. And I sat next to Tom and Tom said 'hey Tom, how's this gonna work?' And I went 'don't worry, Larry said it's in his head' because I had asked Larry the same thing on the phone. I was the first actor to receive this script and I said 'is that a good thing?' and he said 'you should be flattered!' I went 'I'm flattered' and I was the first actor cast and then I read it and I said 'Larry, how is this going to work?' and he said 'don't worry, it's in my head - worry about it when under hill'. I turned to Tom and I said 'don't worry, Larry said it's in his head' and I heard 'Tom, no whispering in here', I went 'what? What are you talking about?' I love Larry, but he does do this stuff to you and I went 'I wasn't talking, I was responding to a question from Tom' and Tom Jane said 'yeah, Tom said to me how is this movie going to work?'. I said 'no, I did not!' and then he got up and told the entire cast, he said 'don't worry - it's in my head.' " DONNIE WAHLBERG ('Band of Brothers', 'The Sixth Sense') as Douglas 'Duddits' Cavell. Wahlberg took on a strikingly different appearance for the role and explained that he used the reaction from people on set to help prepare for his part: "I wasn't there on set all the time so whenever I showed up as Duddits I would always watch people watch me and they would all be like turning and taken aback by the way that I look, but I think that probably helped. It helped me to feel what someone like that may feel. Picture Duddits walking down the street in your neighbourhood - he'd probably get picked on by a bunch of bullies like he did when he was a child in the film." 'Dreamcatcher' was released in North America this week and can be seen across Europe next month. FILM CLEARANCE DETAILS Dreamcatcher Warner Bros 818 977 6278

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer hosts the White House Regular Press Briefing FS37X73 SPEAKERS: WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY SEAN SPICER MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET [*] SPICER: Sorry for the delay, guys. It's budget day. As -- well, I was supposed to kick this off with Director Mulvaney. He's still on a call with the governors, (inaudible) to host a ton of briefings today with key stakeholders. And so, my goal if this times out right, is that as we finish up, Director Mulvaney will walk in the room right on queue, and then we will -- he will talk to you a little bit about the budget and we walk through Q&A on that. So, hopefully this all works. I'm going to skip past the part where I say thank you, Director Mulvaney. (LAUGHTER) 15:04:36 SPICER: As the director will say, the president's budget blueprint keeps his promise to put America's security first, turning his words directly into policies that restore respect for our citizens hard-earned tax dollars. There were some additional non-events budget -- non-budget events of the day. SPICER: This morning, the president had a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Kenny of Ireland. Our two nations have a long history, common values and important economic ties. The president was honored to host him here in the Oval Office and recommit to strong social, political and economic relations between the U.S. and Ireland. This afternoon, the president made the remarks at the Friends of Ireland luncheon at the Capitol. This traditional lunch celebrating Americans bipartisan commitment to peace and security in Ireland was started in 1983 by President Reagan and Speaker O'Neill; both proud Irish-Americans, and has been attended by every president, speaker and Taoiseach of Ireland since then. And also while at the Capitol right around now, the vice president is swearing in former Senator Dan Coats as the next director of National Intelligence in his ceremonial office. Former Senator Coats has clearly demonstrated the deep subject -- the subject-matter expertise and sound judgment required to lead our intelligence community, and the president is finally glad to have him on board as part of his team. Later this evening, the president, along with Taoiseach Kenny will attend the St. Patrick's Day reception and participate in the annual Shamrock ceremony. Since 1952, the president has invited the Taoiseach to come to the White House in celebration of St. Patrick's Day, where they present a bowl of shamrocks as a symbol of the profound and lasting relationship between the two countries. The president and Taoiseach Kenny will also make remarks. I have a few more notes before I get to Director Mulvaney. First, I wanted to share with you guys, it's a letter that should be going out shortly, if it hasn't already, that the resident signed this morning, wishing Ray Chavez, the oldest living survivor of Pearl Harbor, a happy 105th birthday. 15:06:43 Our nation owes Mr. Chavez's generation, and he a great generation -- a debt of gratitude for extraordinary legacy of liberty, freedom around the world, fighting to ensure security and prosperity for millions. A copy of the letter will be sent out if it hasn't already, and obviously we all extend our warm wishes to Ray and his family as they celebrate his 105th, and the president signed a letter wishing he hopes to have several more birthdays to come. This afternoon, the president announced his intent to nominate several individuals to key posts at the Department of Defense. Robert Daigle as the director of cost assessment and program evaluation, Elaine McCluster (ph) as principal of deputy undersecretary of defense, David Norquist as undersecretary of defense and controller, Kenneth Repano (ph) as assistant secretary of defense for homeland security -- homeland of defense and global security. 15:07:34 Patrick Shanahan as deputy secretary of defense, and David Joel Trachtenberg as principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. The president is glad to have these extremely qualified men and women on board to assist Secretary Mattis as he undertakes the great rebuilding of our nation's military. Also this afternoon, the president declared a major disaster in the state of California, and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe winter storms, flooding and mudslides this January. We also announced this afternoon that Second Lady Karen Pence will lead the presidential delegation to the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria. The House Budget Committee met earlier this morning and approved the American Healthcare Act, making it now the third committee to move the ACA -- the AHCA forward. We're working hand in glove with the House to consider improvements, and we're confident that this thoughtful and thorough process will lead to legislation those reforms our healthcare, making it more affordable and accessible to every American. 15:08:38 Since we won't have a chance to meet tomorrow, in light of the president and Chancellor Merkel's press conference, I want to quickly walk you through a couple of events on the president's schedule. Tomorrow of course, the president will welcome German Chancellor Merkel here at the White House, rescheduling from the snow -- inclement weather that prevented that from happening the other day. The president and the chancellor have a series of meetings, and then will host a round table focusing on the importance of vocational training with both American and German business leaders. They will also have a press conference in the afternoon; we'll have details on the entire day later this afternoon. Also tomorrow, the president will attend a listening session with Veteran's Affairs, and V.A. Secretary Shulkin and representatives from the various veteran services organizations. It's incredibly important to the president that we reform the V.A. so that they can fulfill the promises made to the women -- men and women who risk their lives for our nation. He looks forward to discussing potential changes that can help improve the veteran's administration. 15:09:39 On Monday, the president will meet with Bill Gates, the co- founder of Microsoft. He'll also have lunch with the vice president and a meeting with the secretary of state. SPICER: Later that afternoon, the president will welcome Prime Minister Abadi of Iraq to the White House, and on Wednesday, the president has invited all 49 members of the Congressional Black Caucus to come to the White House for a meeting. The president looks forward to welcoming for what he hopes will be a productive discussion. And I also want to remind everyone that I did, yesterday, via Twitter, that the lottery for the 139th annual Easter Egg Roll is open until Saturday -- this coming Saturday. Everyone who's interested in attending can go to recreation.gov. Further information is at whitehouse.gov for details. At his rally last night the president addressed the decision by the federal court -- the federal district court in Hawaii to block his lawfully execute -- executive order. As the president said last night, quote, "The law and the Constitution give the power -- the president the power to suspend immigration when he deems it to be necessary and in the national interest." The court didn't even bother to quote the relevant statute in its opinion, which could of plainly shown that the president clearly has this authority. I know you've heard it before, but since the court didn't, let me quote it again for you, 8 U.S. Code 1182 states quote, "Whenever the president finds the entry of aliens -- any aliens or class -- of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interest of the United States he may, by proclamation and for such period as he deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or non-immigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem appropriate," end quote. The Department of Justice quote, strongly -- said in a statement that they "strongly disagree with the federal district court's ruling which is flawed in both reasoning and scope." DOJ continued, quote, "The president's executive order falls squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our nation's security, and the department will continue to defend his executive order in the courts. 15:11:44 The department is exploring all available options to vigorously defend this executive order. We intend to appeal the flawed rulings." Currently, the Department of Justice is determining the legal strategy and timing. We expect action to be taken soon to appeal the ruling in the 4th Circuit and to seek clarification of the order prior to appeal in the 9th Circuit. The danger is real and the law is clear. The president was elected to change our broken immigration system and he will continue to exercise his constitutional authority and presidential responsibility to protect our nation. And just before I get to your questions and then before we'll introduce Director Mulvaney. I just want to follow up on a couple questions that have come up recently. John Decker asked multiple times on the enforcement of the president's executive order to restrict lobbying activities of executive branch employees, which includes a five year ban on lobbying agencies where you served and a lifetime ban on lobbying from foreign governments. I said I'd get back to John, so here we go. The executive order itself has a section -- section five, which focuses on enforcement. The order outlines that each agency head is tasked with working with the Office of Government Ethics to establish procedures for determining potential violations of the ethics pledge. 15:12:58 Should a violation be determined, the executive order authorizes the Department of Justice to enforce the order through several mechanisms. Debarment proceedings, these would restrict and individual or his or her associated entities from doing business with the federal government, seeking an injunction such as a restraining order from lobbying for 10 years, the five years in the ethics agreement plus an additional five years, or civil penalties such as a fine commensurate with the nature of the violation. The president fully expects the Department of Justice to vigorously enforce this executive order. Also yesterday several of you asked where the House is in regard to additional legislation as outlined in the third prong of the ACHA -- ACA and the president's plan to reform healthcare. I'm pleased to note that last night, Leader McCarthy in the House introduced four pieces of legislation that will remove burdensome regulations, lower costs and increase access, as we've noted. The Competitive Health Insurance Reform Act, H.R.372, which eliminates anti-trust protection for insurance provider, creating competition so that Americans are not left with just one choice for healthcare coverage. 15:14:20 The Small Business Health Fairness Act, H.R. 1101, which allows small business to band together and negotiate lower prices, the Protecting Access to Care Act, H.R. 1215, which limits frivolous lawsuits that unnecessarily drive up healthcare costs and the Self Insurance Protection Act, H.R. 1304, which protects workers who get their healthcare coverage from employers that self-insure by providing a backdrop (ph) on catastrophic losses. And, finally, in terms of following up from yesterday. In regard to the DOJ's indictments of Russian hackers on Yahoo data, this action demonstrates the United States commitment to identifying cyber criminals and bringing them to justice, no matter where they are. It also highlights the criminal (ph) importance of international cooperation to our cyber regime. And like I said yesterday, as though (ph) this is a lawful enforcement action. Anything beyond that I would direct you to the Department of Justice and the FBI for further details. SPICER: Before I continue, let me turn it over to Director Mulvaney to talk a little bit about the budget -- director. 15:15:06 MULVANEY: Thanks very much. Good afternoon, and happy day before St. Patrick's Day, also known as budget day. Most of you heard me talk about the budget before. So I'm not going to say too many things in opening before we get to your questions. But we will remind you that this what we're calling the "America First" budget. We had America First and America First candidate. We now have an America First President and it shouldn't surprise anybody that we have an America First budget. You've seen the details. As we've talked about last week -- $54 billion of additional defense spending. We have some more details today on where that money is going. We're seeing increases at the V.A., increases within the Department of Justice for law enforcement, increases within the Department of Homeland Security for things that include border security and immigration controls. Immigration is within -- excuse me -- increases within the Department of Energy to deal with a nuclear triad. And then corresponding reductions, similar amounts, offsetting dollar for dollar, in other programs. The largest reduction, if you've seen the budget already, is a 31 percent reduction within the Environmental Protection Agency. 15:16:10 The next largest reduction on a percentage basis is with the Department of State, and the other departments are reduced in lesser amounts. I think the smallest reduction we have is NASA, which is just less than one percent. But there again, as with many of the agencies, you'll see certain line items within those budgets plussed-up (ph). This is the message the President wanted to send to the public, to the press, to Capitol Hill -- he wants more money for defense, more money for border enforcement, more money for law enforcement generally, more money for the vets, more money for school choice. And then, to offset that money with savings elsewhere, so that all of that is done without an additional dollar added to the deficit, as I've mentioned before. This budget does not balance the budget. This budget simply reallocates and reprioritizes spending, as any family or business would do. This budget does not, for those of you who were not here last week, this budget does not address the big-picture items, such as policy changes, revenue flows, tax policy, mandatory spending. This is simply the top-line spending budget. That's why we call it the budget blueprint and not the full budget. The full budget, which will contain all the rest of those pieces and parts, will be released in May. 15:17:23 Before I take questions, I want to do something I don't ordinarily do and I'm sure is kind of new. I'm going to call on the New York Times because they're in trouble. Apparently -- is there -- where's my New York Times guy? Matt Flegenheimer and Alan Rappeport -- QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) MULVANEY: OK, are in big trouble. I'll give you the first question, but you have to deliver this message to them. They printed this morning that I'm the father of 17-year old triplet girls. My 17 year-old daughter really wishes that had happened, but my two 17-year- old sons are really upset. So, if you could a -- (LAUGHTER) MULVANEY: -- if you could clarify that, that would be great. I'll give you the first question if you've got one. So, go ahead. QUESTION: Well, we're not great at math obviously at the New York Times. (CROSSTALK) MULVANEY: The math was right. It's actually the gender that was wrong. (LAUGHTER) 15:18:04 QUESTION: But sir, during the campaign, President Trump then candidate Trump talked about national debt, which of course will reach around $20 trillion. You mentioned it in your budget message this morning. Is there a plan -- as the president talked about during last year's campaign to actually eliminate the national debt in eight years? He said during the campaign it will be easy to actually eliminate the entire debt -- not the deficit, but the debt in eight years. Is that something that this president is actually committed to trying to do? MULVANEY: It's a good question. It's a fair question. I would just suggest to you it's not the right time for the question. The budget blueprint, again, does not deal with the debt. It even doesn't even deal with the deficit. It is simply the first part of the appropriations process. We'll send this up to the Hill now and the appropriations committees of the House, the Senate. Of course the House controls the power of the purse. The -- I'm sorry, excuse me -- Congress controls the power of the purse. And this will be the first step in that process. We will start to address the issues of the longer term deficit, longer term debt in that larger budget. Of course, we'll have to deal at that time with things like mandatory spending, tax policy, revenue flows to the government. So again, it's a fair question, I just don't think now is the time to ask the question. 15:19:16 QUESTION: The 28 percent that comes out of the State Department. I know that you're leaving a lot of discretion to the people who are in charge there and all of these agencies who are having to put up these cuts, but how much is intended to come out of the foreign aid budget of that (ph) $10 billion. MULVANEY: A lot of it. 15:19:33 Keeping as -- I've said before, one of the reasons that you're seeing such a dramatic reduction in the State Department on a percentage basis is not that this president thinks that diplomacy is not important. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. We've already seen that Secretary Tillerson has had a tremendous -- one diplomatic success already on the deal he cut with Iraq. MULVANEY: The president believes in diplomacy, and we believe that this budget protects that core function of the State Department. It just so happens that much of the foreign aid that the president talked about in the campaign, much of the money that goes to climate research, green energy, those types of things, they're actually in the State Department budget. If those line items had been in the Department of Commerce, you would see Department of Commerce having gone down by that -- that -- by a similarly large percentage. So the answer to your question is that most of the cuts within the State Department try to focus directly on foreign aid. Yes, sir? QUESTION: Yes, the -- the budget showed a 0.8 percent in decrease for NASA. But you've also talked about the administration using private companies, such as SpaceX, for example for more of that. So does this show some, you know, is some of this gonna be shifted over to the private sector and does this show a commitment on the administrations part for its science in NASA? 15:20:45 MULVANEY: It does, again, if you go back and you do what we did which is go back to the president's speeches, the interviews he gave and just talking to him, we tried to identify his priorities. I mean one of the things he told us was look, I'm still interested in America being involved in space -- in space exploration. So even though the overall top line number at NASA is reduced by a small fraction -- I think it's 0.8 percent as you mentioned -- individual line items that deal with specifically space exploration are actually plussed up. And part of the -- part of the -- the intent there is to promote exactly what you just talked about. Yes, sir? 15:21:16 QUESTION: Two questions, your own experience in the House tells you that a lot of these cuts haven't been voted for before. Do you consider this budget an opening bid and do you expect a lot of pushback even from Republicans on the specificity and the size of these cuts? And secondly, to take your point about the president's words on the campaign, those of us who traveled around remember, said he didn't wanna touch those securities, Medicare, the big entitlements. The fact that that's not in this budget, is that a signal that those programs are gonna remain untouched and as the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said, that ignores 70 percent of spending and 90 percent of its growth over the next decade. MULVANEY: I'll deal with the second one first, which the president is absolutely going to keep the promised he kept on the campaign trail. 15:21:59 Again, you will see no reference in Social Security here, no reference to Medicare here, no reference to Medicaid here or any of the other mandatory programs, what some people call entitlement programs, because that's not what this budget is. This is the discretionary part of the budget, half of which as you know, is defense and the other half is everything else, the alphabet soup of government. So just because it's not here, doesn't mean we're dodging the issue. You would never see in any budget blueprint that deals with the top line spending numbers, social security, Medicare and Medicaid. To your other question about it not being popular on the Hill, yeah, I -- I can recognize that. I've been on the Hill enough to know that some of these are (ph) very unpopular. Keep in mind, the president is a unique position. I've been a member of Congress, I represented 700,000 people in South Carolina. I had my constituency, it was a district. Senators represent an entire state. We're always dealing with special interests from back home, we're dealing with lobbyists from back home. The president is beholden to none of that. The president is -- has drafted a budget for the entire nation because that's who he sees himself as representing. He did not have -- ask lobbyists for input on this. He did not ask special input -- special interest for input on this and he certainly didn't focus on how these programs might impact a specific congressional district. 15:23:09 But we know that going into it and again, the message we're sending to the Hill is, we want more money for the things the president talked about, defense being the top one, national security. And we don't wanna add to the budget deficit, if Congress has another way to do that, we're happy to talk to them about it. Yes, sir, in the glasses? 15:23:25 QUESTION: James Banks (ph) from Alta Zero (ph). The United Nations says that the world's currently facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the end of World War II, 20 million people in just four countries, facing starvation or famine. And yet, you're cutting funding to the U.N. to come -- funding to the foreign aid budget. Are you worried that some of the most vulnerable people on earth will suffer as a result? MULVANEY: We're absolutely producing funding to the U.N. and to the various foreign aid programs, including those run by the U.N. and other agencies. That should come as a surprise to no one who watched the campaign. The president said, specifically, hundreds of times, you covered him. I'm going to spend less money on people overseas and more money on people back home and that's exactly what we're going with this budget. Yes, ma'am? Yes? QUESTION: Given your focus on dollar for dollar offsets in fiscal '18, employers fiscal set (ph) fiscal year 2017 request, you didn't insist on dollar for dollar offsets. Why is that? Why are you not concerned about adding to the deficit in fiscal 2017? 15:24:28 MULVANEY: The -- the large part of the -- the point -- the question deals with the 2017 request, which is a $30 billion -- I think its actually $3 billion, billion and a half in there for the wall. And it's not entirely offset, there's a couple reasons for that. One of them is time, another one is that some of that is what they call Overseas Contingency Operations, now, you also know that I have a somewhat colored history with the -- with the Overseas Contingency Operations. But I will tell you that we went through this and made sure that the money that's being requested is true OCO, means that its focused truly on the areas where we're involved overseas, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, those types of places. So we have sent them $18 billion worth of proposed reductions for 2017. Not all of them were offset. Yes, ma'am -- 15:25:14 QUESTION: (inaudible). The President called for eliminating funding from the corporations with public broadcasting, and the national endowment for the arts. Yet the Republican Congress sent the President appropriations bills that fund CPB and NEA. Will he veto those bills and tell the Republican leadership to send bills that defund those things? MULVANEY: I think the message the President sent right now is that we want to defund those, and there's completely defensible reasons for doing that. It's a simple message, by the way. I put myself in the shoes of that steelworker in Ohio, the coal miner -- the coal mining family in West Virginia, the mother of two in Detroit, and I'm saying, OK, I have to go ask these folks for money, and I have to tell them where I'm going to spend it. Can I really go to those folks, look them in the eye, and say look, I want to take money from you and I want to give it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That is a really hard sell, in fact something we don't think we can defend anymore. As to specific vetoes, you and I both know it doesn't come over one by one, line item by line item doesn't come over. They come over in large appropriations bills, and we'll work with Congress to go through the appropriations process and we'll make determinations on whether or not to sign appropriations bills or veto them at the appropriate time. Yes sir, in the -- QUESTION: There are several places in the budget where you're talking about eliminating funding for unauthorized programs. Are you laying down a marker about unauthorized programs, and do you think spending discipline would be improved if Congress authorized everything that was -- MULVANEY: We hope so. For those of you who aren't familiar with this, we actually spend a lot of money in the federal government that's on programs that aren't authorized at all. 15:26:48 Remember, spending is sort of -- to break it down, it's sort of a three-step process to spend money. You have to budget for it first, then you have to authorize it, and then you have to appropriate it. But a lot of the programs that we spent money on for years have been unauthorized spending. Either they used to be authorized -- actually most of them used to be authorized and then they simply lapsed -- and some of them were just never authorized in the first place. They simply were appropriated without any authorization. And yes, the message is, that's not the right way to do it. In fact, we think that's the wrong way to do it. You heard the President talk specifically on the campaign trail about at least five percent reductions for unauthorized programs, and that's what generated this budget. QUESTION: Director Mulvaney, you talk about this budget basically keeping the promises the President made during the course of the campaign. 15:27:34 The housing and urban development -- from housing and urban development, this budget blueprint calls for a 13 percent reduction, $6 billion. During the course of the campaign, President Trump said, specifically to urban black voters, he says, what do you have to lose? It turns out what they had to lose is at least $6 billion that goes to many programs that benefit those communities. What do you say to those Americans who feel that -- 15:27:52 MULVANEY: Nobody's going to get kicked out of their houses. What we did when we looked at the HUD budget was try to figure out a way to spend money better, and what we saw -- and I talked to Dr. Carson about this just today, what we saw when we went through the analysis of the HUD budget, is that a lot of their money got spent on government housing and building. It's actually infrastructure. And what Senator Carson -- excuse me, senator -- what Secretary Carson and I talked about is figuring out a way to do that better. And as we did that, what we realized was, we are working on a large infrastructure program that we hope to run -- roll out this summer. And what Secretary Carson wants to do is take the money for the infrastructure that's in HUD right now -- and not very well run -- and move that into this larger program. In fact, you'll see the same line items, or similar line items, the Department of Transportation for the same reason. These do not mean the President's changing his commitment to infrastructure. Again, far from it. What we're saying is, look, for years and years, we have built infrastructure like this and it doesn't work very well -- (CROSSTALK) Let me finish and I'll get (ph) back to you. And then, so what we're doing now is we're taking it out of the discretionary budget and we're going to move it into the larger infrastructure plan this summer. 15:28:53 QUESTION: -- housing and urban development and the community development block grants aren't exclusively about housing. They support a variety of different programs, including in part Meals on Wheels that affects a lot of Americans. In Austin, Texas today, one organization there that delivers those meals to thousands of elderly says that those citizens will no longer be able to be provided those meals. So what do you say to those Americans who are ultimately losing out, not on housing, but on other things that are taken out of the budget? MULVANEY: Right. And as you know -- or I think you know, that Meals on Wheels is not a federal program. It's part of that community, that CDBG, the block grants that we give to the states. And what -- and many states make the decision to use that money on Meals on Wheels. Here's what I can tell you about CDBG's, because that's what we fund, right, is that we spent $150 billion on those programs since the 1970s. These are -- the CDBG's have been identified as programs since I believe the first -- actually the second Bush administration as ones that were just not showing any results. That -- we can't do that anymore. We can't spend money on programs just because they sound good. And great, Meals on Wheels sounds great. Again, that's a state decision to fund that particular portion, to take the federal money and give it to the states, and say look, we want to give you money for programs that don't work. MULVANEY: I can't defend that anymore. We cannot defend that anymore. We're $20 trillion in debt. We're going to spend money. We're going to spend a lot of money. But we're not going to spend it on programs that cannot show that they actually deliver the promises that we made to people. 15:30:13 QUESTION: You're talking about programs that do work or don't work? There's a program called The Shine (ph). It's in Pennsylvania, rural counties of Pennsylvania, that provides after-school educational programs for individuals in those areas, which just so happens to be the state that helped President Trump to the White House. I'm curious what you say to those Americans in the community where they tell me today that 800 individuals will no longer be -- children who need it most -- will no longer be provided in those most needed communities, the educational care they need. MULVANEY: I'm not familiar -- you all are at an advantage over me because I'd have to memorize all 4,000 line items. So, let's talk about after-school programs generally. They're supposed to be educational programs, right? And that's what they're supposed to do, they're supposed to help kids who can't -- who don't get fed at home, get fed so that they do better at school. Guess what? There's no demonstrable evidence they're actually doing that. There's no demonstrable evidence they're actually helping results, helping kids do better at school. Which is what when we took your money from do say look, we're going to go spend it on a after-school programs, the way we justified it was these programs are going to help these kids do better at school and get better jobs. 15:31:09 And we can't prove that that's happening. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...to be clear, we're saying -- the administration with this budget is saying that no after-school programs out there are doing their job in helping educate these children? MULVANEY: No. But don't -- but again, now you're asking me a question I don't know the answer to. But I don't believe we cut all the funding for those types of things. Yes sir? 15:31:25 QUESTION: Pennsylvania -- just to follow up on that. You were talking about the steel worker in Ohio and the coal miner in Pennsylvania and so on, but those workers they have an elderly mother who depends on the Meals on Wheels program, who may have kids in Head Start. And yesterday or the day before, you described this as a hard- powered budget, but is it also a hard-hearted budget? MULVANEY: No, I don't think so. In fact, I think it's probably one of the most compassionate things we can do to actually -- QUESTION: Cut programs that help the elderly and kids? MULVANEY: You're only focusing on half of the equation, right? You're focusing on recipients of the money. We're trying to focus on both the recipients of the money and the folks who give us the money in the first place. And I think it's fairly compassionate to go to them and say, look, we're not going to ask you for your hard-earned money anymore, single mom of two in Detroit, OK? Give us your money. We're not going to do that anymore. Unless we can -- (CROSSTALK) MULVANEY: Let me finish. Please, let me finish. Unless we can guarantee to you that that money is actually be used in a proper function. And I think that is about as compassionate as you can get. Yes, ma'am? 15:32:25 QUESTION: I have a question on the border wall? MULVANEY: Sure. QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE). You know, the budget, as I understand it, asks for $4.1 billion. So, $1.5 billion for this year and $2.6 billion for the following year. There's no mention at all of whether or not Mexico is going to help pay for it, or reimburse the U.S. for it, as the president pledged. So, where is the money coming from for the border wall? MULVANEY: A couple of things. Your number is correct, it's $1.5 billion for 2017 -- back to your question about 2017, and I think $2.6 billion for 2018. People have asked me a couple of times, does that build the whole wall? No, it doesn't, but it gets us a start on the program, and you'll see some of the wall being built this year, and obviously, we've increased funding in 2018. But the wall will not -- will take longer than two years to build. As to the source of funds, that's up to the president and the Treasury and the State Department. I'm the folks -- I'm the guy -- we're the guys that OMB and the gals at OMB who take the money that we have and allocate it on a budgetary process. So, it's up to somebody else to figure out where the money comes from. Yes, sir? 15:33:29 QUESTION: Yes. The budget for DOJ, it zeros out reimbursements for state and local jails holding immigrants in the country illegally. Some of that money now goes to sanctuary cities. Is that part of the president's promise to withhold funding from sanctuary cities? And are there other elements of the budget intended to carry out that punishment that the president talked about? MULVANEY: Yes, honestly I'm not familiar with that particular line item. So let me deal with the DOJ like this (ph), and also, Homeland. Because there's some increases in Homeland that deal with this sort of topic. You're going to see an increase in Homeland for an increase in detention facilities. It's a fairly significant increase to detention facilities because we have -- the president has said he wants to stop the catch-and-release program. In fact, he's signed an executive order to do just that, and we fund that. We increase the amount of money towards detention facilities for folks who are coming into the country illegally. I'll give you a follow-up because I didn't answer your first question very well. QUESTION: A question about the cuts you're making to things like transportation and housing. You said those would be paid for later with other appropriations, but you said this would be balanced. And I know you've been a fiscal hawk yourself. It sounds like a bit of a shell game, though, where you're saying now this is a balanced budget, but you're saying you're not stopping to pay for other things because those will be paid for later. But then where are you going to pay for those other -- MULVANEY: Right. And again, it's not -- (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: -- all this stuff has to get paid for. 15:34:45 MULVANEY: And just to clarify, it's not a balanced budget. There would still be roughly $488 billion deficit, according to the Congressional Budget Office, next year. We simply didn't add to that in order to spend more money on the president's priorities. Regarding moving projects out of -- say, the base budgets for the agencies and into the infrastructure -- the infrastructure program is something we've just recently started. It won't probably come until summer or maybe even early fall. We have to do Obamacare repeal and replace first; then tax reform second. That leaves infrastructure probably third, which may come after the August recess in Congress. So I -- you're making an assumption that I'm not willing to make. You're making an assumption that all that infrastructure that we provide for later on in the year is going to go to the deficit, and I'm not willing to make that assumption. Yes, sir? QUESTION: (inaudible) one, (inaudible) provides robust funding for embassy security... MULVANEY: Yes, sir. QUESTION: ... citing the Benghazi Accountability Review Board. Does that mean there will be an increase, considering all the criticism that the president and Republicans levied against President Obama for supposedly cutting embassy security? 15:35:48 MULVANEY: That's one of those line items that we leave up to Secretary Tillerson. He and I talked about the -- the State Department budget, and how he decides to allocate that. It may be that there are some embassies that don't need a lot more security and some that do. So we gave him the flexibility to do that. The gentleman in the back had a question. QUESTION: Many countries around the globe (inaudible) that he will cut the foreign aid because most of the countries getting U.S. aid were not with the U.S. supporting terrorism against the U.S., and also they were not voting with the U.S. So how does President Trump feel now about those countries? Will (inaudible) continue the aid? Because the U.S. (inaudible) asking that we don't have to spend on those countries who are against the U.S.? 15:36:37 MULVANEY: Again, I come back to what the president said on the campaign, which is that he's going to spend less money overseas. To your question, though, because this came up the other day, which is the hard power versus soft power. There's a very deliberate attempt here to send a message to our allies and our friends, such as India, and our adversaries, other countries, shall we say, which is that this is a hard-power budget; that this administration intends to change course from a soft power budget to a hard power budget. And that's a message that our adversaries and our allies alike should take. I'll take one more because I'm sort of running down. Yes, ma'am? QUESTION: (inaudible) explain a little bit more about what message the president is trying to send by eliminating a lot of funding for science and climate change research (inaudible) earlier. And just a follow-up (inaudible). 15:37:24 MULVANEY: Sure. A couple of different messages when we talk about science and climate change. Let's deal with them separately On science, we're going to function -- we're going to focus on the core function. There's reduction, for example, I think in the NIH, National Institutes for Health. Why? (CROSSTALK) MULVANEY: Thank you. Why? Because we think there's been mission creep. We think they do things that are outside their core functions. We think there's tremendous opportunity for savings. We recommend, for example, that a couple of facilities be combined, that there would be cost savings from that. Again, this comes back to the president's business person view of government, which is if you took over this as a CEO and you'd look at this on a spreadsheet and go: Why do we have all of these facilities? Why do we have seven when we could do the same job with three? Won't that save money? And the answer is yes. So part of your answer is focusing on efficiencies and focusing on doing what we do better. Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward. We're not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money to go out and do that. So that is a specific tie to his campaign. Yes, I'm sorry. You've got a follow-up, then I'm going to... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: (inaudible) really quick on meals-on-wheels. You mentioned that it's one of those programs (inaudible) determined have not been doing its job effectively. 15:38:37 What evidence are you using to make that statement? And is -- is not feeding seniors in and of itself the fulfillment of (inaudible)? MULVANEY: And my understanding from having been in state government, and I may have this wrong. I've been wrong several times today. This may not be the first time. But my understanding of meals-on-wheels is that that is a state determination. 15:38:54 We -- the federal government doesn't directly fund that. It funds the central -- community development block grants, CDBGs. And some states choose to take the money and do meals-on- wheels. Other states and localities might choose to do something else with it. We look at the CDBGs. And when we do that, we look at this as $150 billion spent over 40 years with no -- without the appreciable benefits to show for that type of taxpayer expenditure. And that's why we have the reduction. QUESTION: May I follow up on that? MULVANEY: No, because I'm going to -- how Sean does this every day for an hour and a half, I have no idea. But I'm going to... (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) MULVANEY: I've been up since four a.m. this morning, so I'm going to turn it back over to Sean. Thank you very much and we'll talk to you all soon. SPICER: Thanks. Anyway, so to kick it off, Jonathan Karl? 15:39:49 QUESTION: So, Sean, the day before yesterday, you said you were extremely confident that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees would ultimately vindicate the president's allegation that Trump Tower was wiretapped. As I'm sure you have now seen, the Senate Intelligence Committee has said they see no indications Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance. That seems to be a pretty blanket statement. What's your reaction? 15:40:14 SPICER: Well, I think there are several things, I would also -- it's -- its interesting to me that you know, just as a -- as a point of interest that when -- when one entity says one thing that -- that proves, that claims one thing, you guys cover it ad nauseam. When Devin Nunes came out and said I think it's very possible, yesterday, there was crickets from you guys. When Devin Nunes came out and said there was no connection that he saw to Russia, crickets. When Tom Cotton said the same, you don't wanna cover this stuff -- no, no, hold on... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...on no evidence... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, actually... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...now you've had the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no, actually here's his quote, Jonathan, no here's the direct quote, "I think it's very possible," end quote. That's what he said when he said the president's communications could've been swept up in collection. So again, I... QUESTION: He said there was no -- I saw no indication of a wire tap... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: I understand that and I think -- and I think the president's been very clear when talks about this, and he talked about it last night. So we talked about wire tapping, he meant surveillance and that there have been incidents that have occurred. Devin Nunes couldn't have stated it more beautifully. But you choose not to cover that part. You chose not to cover when Tom Cotton went out, when Richard Burr went out, when others, Chairman Nunes and others and said that there was no -- hold on... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...Intelligence Committee take... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Yeah I -- no, I understand that, Jonathan. 15:41:22 And where was your passion and where was your concern when they all said that there was no -- no connection to Russia? Where was it then? You -- crickets, from you guys, because at the end of the day, when -- no, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on, I'm -- hold on, hold on... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...tower? SPICER: I'm making a point. The point is this, number one, that its interesting how when evidence comes out and people who have been briefed on the Russia connection come out and say that there was nothing that they have seen that proves a connection, you choose not to cover that, you don't stop the narrative. You continue to perpetuate a false narrative. When he came out yesterday and said quote, "I see no evidence that this happened." When he said quote, "I think it's very possible," like I said, we should know (ph) -- you don't cover that part. You only cover the part -- but let's go through what we do know, OK? Hold on, hold on, let me -- and I'm trying to answer your question, Jonathan, if you can calm down. 15:42:08 If you look at (inaudible) on January 20 -- 12th, 2017, they said quote, "In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government's 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections. The new rules significantly relax long-standing limits on what the NSA may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operation which are largely unregulated by wire tapping laws." When Sarah Carter reported that by the start of the New Year, brought with it unexpected politicizing of the intelligence gathered in secret. Separately, the Obama administration amended a long standing executive order, allowing information intercepted through FISA warrants or by the National Security Agency to be shared by a wider audience and 16 government agencies as Obama was leaving offices. Intelligence normally reserved for just a handful of intelligence leaders was spread throughout briefings, of -- to scores of workers and soon, leaks began appearing in news media organizations, often in stories lacking context of how national security investigations are actually concluded. On March 3rd, Fox News Chief Anchor Bret Baier said the following, quote, "There was a report in June 2016, a FISA request by the Obama administration forwarding intelligence surveillance court to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several other campaign officials. Then they got turned down, then in October, then they renewed it into a start up wire tap at Trump Tower with some computer and Russian banks." Baier continues, "A June FISA request that foreign intelligence surveillance courts get shot down. A judge says," -- hold, Jonathan, I'm gonna -- you can ask, you can follow-up. 15:43:49 "A judge says no go to monitoring Trump Tower, they go back in October, they do get a FISA granted. This is wire tap going on in a monitoring of computers that has some ties they believe to Russian counts. By all accounts, they don't come up with anything in the investigation, but the investigation continues and we don't know it." On November 11th, 2016, days after the election, Heat Street reported, quote, "Two separate sources with links to the counter intelligence community had confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI saw and was granted a FISA warrant in October, giving counter surveillance intelligence permission to examine the activities of U.S. persons and Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia. The first requests which sources say named Trump was denied back in June. But the second was drawn more narrowly and granted in October after evidence was presented of a server, possibly related to the Trump campaign and its alleged links to two banks, SVB Bank and Russia's Alfa Bank. Sources suggest, that a FISA warrant was granted to look at the full context of related documents that concern U.S. person. Two separate sources with links to the counter intelligence community have confirmed that the FBI saw it and was granted a FISA warrant in October, giving counter intelligence permission to examine the activity of U.S. persons and Donald Trump's campaign with ties to Russia." 15:44:53 SPICER: They go on, "The FISA warrant was granted in connection with the investigation of suspected activities, between the server and two banks. However, it is thought that the intelligence community that the warrant covers any U.S. person connected to this U.N. investigation. And thus covers Donald Trump and at least three further men, who have either formed part of his campaign or acted as immediate surrogates." On January 19th, the New York Times reported the following, "American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communication and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible leaks between Russian officials and associates of president-elect Donald J. Trump. One official said, "Intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications have been provided to the White House. It is unclear what Russian official is under investigation or what particular conversations caught the attention of American eavesdroppers. The legal standard for opening these investigation is low." 15:45:49 Andy McCarthy, writing in National Review suggested quote, "From three reports from The Guardian, Heat Street and the New York Times, it appears the FBI has concerns about a private server in Trump Tower that was connected to one or two Russian banks." Heat Street describes these concerns as centering on quote "possible financial -- and banking offenses." I -- this is his quote -- "I italicized the word offenses because it's denotes crimes. Ordinarily when crimes are suspected, there is a criminal investigation, not a national security investigation." We go on. Sara Carter from the Circa reporting intelligence professionals tell Circa News they were concerned that some of the Russian intelligence was spread through group briefings to a much larger than usual audience back in January. This would have happened during the final days of the Obama Administration, when it expanded Executive Order 12333, which allows and plays with a quote "need to know" and further unfettered access to broad data stowed by the NSA. The new rules allow the NSA to share -- quote -- "raw signals intelligence information, including the names of those involved in phone conversations and e-mails. The expansion of the order makes it difficult to narrow on the leaks and, frankly, it allows too many people access to the raw data, which only used to be available to a select few," said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not granted to be speak on the authority. 15:47:03 Numerous outlets including the New York Times have reported on the FBI investigation into Mr. Trump's advisers, BBC and Lynn McCarthy (ph) revealed the existence of a multi-agency working group to coordinate investigations across the thing. On February 14th, the New York Times again refers to phone records and intercepted calls -- let me quote them, "American law enforcement intelligence agency intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering the evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee," three officials said, "The intelligence Russia -- the intelligence agencies then thought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on hacking or on other efforts to influence the election." The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that so far, they've seen no evidence of such cooperation. The official said that the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials and other associates of Mr. Trump. The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the FBI is sifting through. Days later, the New York Times then reports, quote "In the Obama administration's last days, some White House officials scrambled to spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election of Donald Trump, connections between the president-elect and Russians across the government." But the increasingly hard to escape conclusion that in our government that -- individuals in our government were instead trying to undermine the new president by saying quote -- this is the New York Times again - 15:48:26 "At intelligence agencies, there was a push to process as much raw intelligence into possible analysis to keep the report at relatively low classification levels, to ensure a widespread leadership across the government." And in some cases -- quote -- "among them European allies. This allowed the upload of as much information -- intelligence that was possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American analysis to share information." Sean Hannity went on Fox to say, quote, "But protections which are known as minimization procedures have been put in place to protect Americans that are not under warrant," American citizens that are caught up in the surveillance. And quote, "By the way, their identities are protected. Their constitutional rights -- are to be protected. Now of course, this was not the case with Lieutenant General Flynn, because we know a transcript of this call was created and then given to intelligence officials, who then leaked this information, which is a felony, to the press that printed it," end quote. Last on Fox News, on March 14th, Judge Andrew Napolitano made the following statement, quote, "Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI and he didn't use the Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What is that? It's the initials for the British intelligence finding agency. So, simply by having two people saying to them president needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump's conversations, involving president-elect Trump, he's able to get it and there's no American fingerprints on this. 15:49:55 Putting the published accounts and common-sense together, this leads to a lot." y QUESTION: So Sean, are you saying... SPICER: So, John... 15:50:03 QUESTION: ...that despite the findings, the bipartisan findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- SPICER: No, they're not findings. They're two -- there's a statement out today. They have not begun this. As you know, yesterday or two days ago, the Department of Justice asked for an additional week. So they -- the statement clearly says that at this time, that they don't believe that. They have yet to go through the information. The Department of Justice, as you know, has not supplied this. But I just read off to you -- it's interesting. When the New York Times reports... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Hold on, hold on. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... that whole long answer... SPICER: Thank you. Appreciate it. 15:50:32 QUESTION: OK. So, are you saying that the president still stands by his allegation that President Obama ordered wiretapping or surveillance of Trump Tower despite the fact that the Senate Intelligence Committee says they see no indication that it happened? SPICER: But... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Does the president still stand by the allegation? SPICER: First of all, he stands by it, but again, you're mischaracterizing what happened today. The Senate... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: I understand that. And at the same time, they acknowledge that they have not been in contact with the Department of Justice. So -- but again, I go back to what I said at the beginning. It's interesting... (CROSSTALK) 15:51:13 SPICER: Hold on, hold on. It's interesting how at the same time, where were you coming to the defense of that same Intelligence Committee and those members when they said there was no connection to Russia? You didn't seem to report it then. There was no -- no, no... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: ... so you want -- you want a comment and you want to perpetuate a false narrative when... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... report that Clapper said that. I... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: But when those individuals have gone out time and time again; when Chairman Nunes has said, number one, that there was no information that he's aware of that that existed, that got zero reporting. Number two, when he went out yesterday and said, quote, "I think it's very possible," you don't include that in the question mark. The bottom line is that the president said last night that he would be providing -- that there would be additional information coming forward. He's -- there's a ton of media reports out there that indicate that something was going on during the 2016 election. And I think it's interesting, where was the questioning of the New York Times or these other outlets when that was going on? Where was the questioning... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: I believe he will. Jim? 15:51:59 QUESTION: Yeah, you were just quoting Sean Hannity there. The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are quoting... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: I also quote -- I get you're going to cherry pick... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... the FBI director. You're citing Sean Hannity... SPICER: No, no, no. OK. You also look over -- you also tend to overlook all of the other sources, because I know you want to cherry pick it. But -- no, no... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: ... but -- but you do. But where was your concern about the New York Times report? You didn't seem to have a concern with that. QUESTION: We have done -- I've done plenty of reporting on all of this... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no, but you want to cherry pick one... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... these connections between the... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: ... one commentary -- one piece of commentary. QUESTION: ... associates of the president to the Russians. That has all been looked at and... SPICER: No, but how do you know all this? The -- the -- how do you seem to be such an expert on this? QUESTION: I'm saying that this has been looked at, Sean... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: How do you know it's been looked at? (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Hold on, hold on. Where is -- I'm sorry -- I'm afraid -- to understand -- where -- can you tell me how you know that all of this has, quote, "been looked at"? QUESTION: You're asking me whether or not... SPICER: You made a statement. You said, quote, "all of this has been looked at." QUESTION: ... other outlets have reported... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no. So, OK, so we're -- so when your outlet says it's all been looked at... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... to the president and the Russians during the 2016 campaign. It sounds like during the context of that investigation, there might have been some intercepted communications. The House Intelligence Committee chairman did mention that. And we have reported that. Others have reported that -- (inaudible) and various publications. But Sean, what you are refusing to answer -- the question that you are refusing to answer is whether or not the president still believes what he believes... SPICER: No, I'm not. I just said it to Jonathan. I didn't refuse to answer that. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... you have a Senate and House Intelligence Committee both leaders from both parties on both of those panels saying that they don't see any evidence of any wiretapping. So how can the president go on and continue to... SPICER: Because that's not -- because you're mischaraterizing what Chairman Nunes said. He said, quote, "I think it's possible" -- he is following up on this. So to suggest that... (CROSSTALK) 15:53:40 SPICER: And you're stating unequivocally that you somehow... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... literally, you said if you... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Right. And I think that we've already cleared that up. And he said exactly that. But the president has already said clearly, when he referred to wiretapping, he was referring to surveillance. So that's... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: So that's... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... sounds like, though, Sean, that you and the president are saying now, "Well, we don't need wiretapping anymore; that's not true anymore... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: So now we're going to (inaudible) other forms of surveillance. What's it going to be next? SPICER: No, no, that's not -- Jim, I think that's cute, but at the end of the day, we're talked about this for three or four days. What the president had to, quote, "wiretapping," in quotes, he was referring to broad surveillance. And now you're basically going back. We talked about this several days ago. The bottom line is that the investigation by the House and the Senate has not been provided all of the information. And when it does -- but where was the concern... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: ... hold on. I just... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... not evidence... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no. What I -- I think the president addressed that last night, said there's more to come. 15:54:32 These are merely pointing out that I think there's widespread reporting that throughout the 2016 election, there was surveillance that was done on a variety of people. That came up... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... investigation going on as to whether there was contact between the president's campaign and the Russians... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Jim, I find it interesting that you -- you somehow believe that you... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... of course, they're going to be looking at these various... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: OK. OK. I get it. Somehow, you seem to believe that you have all of this information. You've been read-in (ph) on all of these things, which I find very interesting. QUESTION: I haven't (inaudible) by the FBI... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Well, no, you're coming to some serious conclusions for a guy that has zero intelligence... (CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Well, give me some credit... SPICER: I'll give you some... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... a little intelligence maybe. But no... SPICER: Clearance. I wasn't done. Clearance. QUESTION: ...those two -- those two panels... SPICER: Maybe both. QUESTION: Well, come on. (LAUGHTER) QUESTION: Those two panels have spoken with the FBI director and I was... SPICER: I -- I understand that... QUESTION: ...told there's no evidence of this. SPICER: OK I -- I think this question's has been asked and answered... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ... just have the president say he was wrong. SPICER: It's interesting how you jump to all of these conclusions about what they have, what they don't have and you seem to know all the answers. But at the end of the day, there was clearly a ton of reporting... QUESTION: A week from now... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Hold on, Jim, let me answer -- no, I -- I think that there's been a -- a vast amount of reporting which I just detailed, about activity that was going on in the 2016 election. There was no question that there was surveillance techniques used throughout this. I think by -- by a variety of outlets that have reported this activity concluded. So and I think when you actually ask those two people whether or not and as Chairman Nunez said yesterday, when you take it literally in wire tapping, the president's already been very clear that he didn't mean specifically wire tapping, he had it in quotes. 15:56:00 So I think to fall back on that is a false -- is a false premise, that's not what he said. He was very clear about that when he talked about it yesterday, major. QUESTION: Sean? QUESTION: OK Sean, so just to be clear, you're good and the president's good with stories that have anonymous sources in them (ph)? SPICER: No its interesting, I think when it comes to the Russia story and the on the record sources who have been briefed by the FBI continue to conclude that there's nothing there. You guys continue to fall back on these anonymous sources and perpetuate a false narrative. And yet, when it comes to us talking about all these reports in there, you then criticize anonymous sources. No, it's just interesting, this -- this sort of -- the double standard that exists when it comes to us citing stories when it comes to -- and then how you intend to use them. 15:56:41 QUESTION: So let me ask you what -- what the president said last night. He was asked by Tucker Carlson, you're in charge of the various intelligence apparatus that report to you... SPICER: Right. QUESTION: ...you can ask them... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: You can, he would be getting... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...can I ask my question? SPICER: Yeah. QUESTION: He said he was reluctant to do that. SPICER: Right. QUESTION: So lemme just put two things together. Earlier this week, you told us when asked, has the president directed the Justice Department to collect and distribute information to the various relevant congressional committees? If I remember your answer correctly, it was... SPICER: That's right. QUESTION: ...no we hadn't given that specific directions. Has that changed, has he now directed the Justice Department... SPICER: No. QUESTION: ...and is he asking himself, or the intelligence agencies that report to him, to provide him specific answers to these underlying questions that are separate from the reportages... SPICER: No. QUESTION: ...you're citing? SPICER: No. QUESTION: Why not? SPICER: Because I think we've covered this before, I think that gets into interfering this and I think that the appropriate process is to allow the House and the Senate to do it so that it doesn't appear as though we're interfering -- I understand that. But as I've -- I mentioned to you this the other day, Major, if we go at them then you're gonna turn around and say you guys interfered with something and you pressured them. It's a catch 22 for us and the bottom line is, is that I think the president made a clear two Sundays ago that he wanted the House and the Senate Intelligence Committee to work with these agencies to collect the information and make a report. That's what we're doing. In -- in order to make sure that there's a separation from us, so that you can't turn around and then accuse us of -- of forcing or pressuring an agency to produce a document. We're asking them to go through the process of -- of this separation of powers and actually going to those different entities, the Department of Justice said yesterday they want an additional week. And we're allowing that process to play through. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: Sean? SPICER: Got it, Abby? QUESTION: Sean? QUESTION: Sean, I got a follow-up... QUESTION: Did the president make any statements based on classified information? 15:58:20 SPICER: I'm not gonna get into what the -- how the president makes a decision. I think that what I think is clear though, is through the reporting that I just read is if there's clearly widespread open-source material pointing to surveillance that was conducted during the 2016 election. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...information is available to members of the House and the Senate is public, as you noted. They are looking at (inaudible) information... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no, no, they have -- no, no, that's not true. (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: ...evidence to back up the president's claims. So if there is other information, why won't the president release... SPICER: Again, I'm not gonna get into that yet. I think the president discussed that last night on -- on his interview and we'll let the process play out. I understand what he discussed, I think they have -- they have -- they have clearances in the House and the Senate intelligence committees. They're able to conduct this. Alexis (ph)? QUESTION: Sean, I'd like to ask you about two topics, but can you help us all by calling on Peter (ph) right now? (LAUGHTER) SPICER: No I'm gonna -- I understand -- I actually call the question. Alexis (ph), if you don't an answer to your question, I can call on somebody else. (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, thank you. Gabby (ph)? QUESTION: Thanks, Sean. In the case that Judge Watson issued against -- the restraining order against Trump's second travel -- or the president's second travel ban, he included one of the president's tweets. And this is also included in the Washington State case. So I'm wondering, does it give the president any pause that this virtual paper trail is creating -- is having an impact on advancing his agenda? 15:59:45 SPICER: Well, I mean I think that the Department of Justice statement speaks for itself when it comes to that, last night the -- the federal law that I read out clearly gives the president the authority, this is what we argued during the first one. I think for a judge to ignore that statute and talk about tweets or interpreting something that happened during the campaign trail, is -- is not in keeping with their -- how they're supposed to interpret the law. I'm not gonna continue to comment. We tailor that additional -- that second executive order to comply with the judge's order. I think so to go back now and to say, well, based on how the first order was conceived, makes absolutely no sense. But I'm going to let the Department of Justice litigate that, how they do it. But that's -- the second order literally was tailored to the concerns that were rendered by the 9th Circuit in the first executive order. So for them to then turn around and make arguments that are non-germane seems kind of odd. But I'll let the Department of Justice do that. Zeke? QUESTION: Thanks, Sean. One quick followup on the (inaudible) yesterday. 16:00:39 Is the president concerned that comments made by his staff came up in the -- in this lawsuit? (inaudible) comments by Stephen Miller (ph) saying that the second (inaudible) would have (inaudible) same policy outcome as the first. That was the (inaudible) that was used by the judge in that case to sort of (inaudible) get that (inaudible) yesterday. Is he concerned that that -- is he concerned that the (inaudible) that there's mixed messaging coming out of the West Wing? SPICER: No, he's not. And I think that the Department of Justice will be pursuing avenues that will seek to remedy this. 16:01:21 I think when you read through the -- the court's ruling, in Hawaii in particular, it just doesn't seem to make sense. As I mentioned to Kathy (ph), I mean the -- the executive order -- the second executive order was literally tailored. So to go back and talk about statements that occurred, you know, in some cases well before even the first one, seems to not be an accurate reading of the law. But I'll let the Department of Justice, you know, be the ones that argue this and make the appropriate legal argument. Hunter? (CROSSTALK) SPICER: Yeah? QUESTION: (inaudible) your long list of (inaudible) these reports you mentioned. One that (inaudible) accusation that perhaps the PCHQ (ph) was involved. Did the president ever raise this with his conversation with Theresa May? And if this -- if that were to pan out, would that imperil the special relationship between (inaudible)? SPICER: Again, these are just -- that happened I think two days ago. It was something that was, you know, reported on air. I think the point is that there's been a... (CROSSTALK) SPICER: No, no, it has not been raised. But I do think that, again, we're not -- I'm just -- all we're doing is literally reading off what other stations and people have reported. And I think that cast a concern of some of the activities that may have occurred during the '16 election. We're not casting judgment on that. I think the idea is to say that if these organizations, if these individuals came to these conclusions, they merit looking into. Olivier (ph). 16:02:42 QUESTION: Thanks, Sean. I've got a couple for you. There's a news report about the president's meeting with the Saudi defense minister/deputy crown prince, that says that the defense minister told the president about a plot, a terrorist plot against the United States. Did that happen? What's the nature of that? How worried should Americans be? SPICER: We're obviously never going to comment on any kind of specific threats to the homeland. We're obviously committed to ensuring the safety of every American. But it should be no secret that we share intelligence amongst a variety of countries. And so we would never comment on a potential threat or not that existed, but we appreciate several countries that we work with closely to make sure that we do what we can to protect the homeland. QUESTION: And one more. Secretary Tillerson in Asia said that 20 years of diplomatic efforts have failed to get North Korea to denuclearize. That's plainly true, but the question I guess that comes up is does the president plan a break from diplomacy altogether? Are we looking now at only the use of force or some other coercive measures? 16:03:46 SPICER: I'm not going to comment. I think the president never takes anything off the table. That's something that he's been very clear about. And -- and that -- Blake? QUESTION: Sean, over the course of the campaign, the president made a couple of different -- many comments about the budget and the deficit. At one point, he said he thought that he could get rid of the national debt over the course of eight years. At another point, he said that he would insist on a balanced budget relatively soon. Now, the baseline that the administration is giving out is, "Well, at least we're not adding onto the deficit," which is nearly a half-trillion dollars. So I'm curious as to how we got from that point to now, to where he was talking at one point about eliminating a bunch, and now it's adding onto... (CROSSTALK) 16:04:32 SPICER: I think Director Mulvaney addressed that. I think, look, a couple of things. Number one, the Senate dragged its feet on getting Director Mulvaney confirmed and in office. So I think we're way -- we were behind the curve on having a director of OMB. We got in here. I think we produced a blueprint that is consistent with the president's principles and priorities. But he's already made it very clear that we'll have a budget probably sometime in May that will outline the more specifics of the revenue piece, the entitlement piece, and the full details of all this. But that's -- eliminating a $20 trillion debt and tackling the current deficit is something that's going to take a little bit of time. It's something the president is committed to reducing, and I think we've talked very extensively about the president's commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars and using them more efficiently. This budget and a lot of the action the president has took on, you know, on other projects including the F-18, the next generation of Air Force One, show that the president's committed on very, very personal basis to getting involved in programs and policies to reduce the deficit and to respect taxpayer money. So this is step one and it's a down payment on that goal. QUESTION: As for future steps, there are lots of cuts in here but no matter which way you splice the numbers, anyone will tell you, if you want a drop it somehow, you've got to get to entitlements. SPICER: I understand. QUESTION: Is that on the table potentially, yes or no? 16:05:55 SPICER: Look, as Director Mulvaney put it, look, there's been -- he was chosen for this job because of his commitment to fiscal austerity and respect of taxpayer dollars and budgeting skills and I think that we've got to get past today, let us get down that, and we'll have more -- but again, I think this budget is a huge down payment on the president's goal of showing his commitment to fiscal responsibility and respecting the taxpayer. QUESTION: Sean, tax day is coming up. A lot of Americans putting together their tax returns. When the president puts together his tax return this year, will he release it publicly? Presuming it's not under audit. SPICER: Well St. Patrick's Day is tomorrow, that's what I'm more focused on. QUESTION: Presumably his 2016 returns are not under audit yet. So will he release... SPICER: ...Right. Well, again, we'll -- we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. I think the president's been very clear about his position on his tax returns and we'll have to see where it goes from there but the president has been very clear throughout the campaign and consistent that he's under a routine audit. QUESTION: Reading the draft of the budget, listening to Director Mulvaney comments yesterday and today, it would appear that the national endowment for the arts would be phased out entirely in two years. 16:06:58 Can you name any other government programs or even cabinet departments such as housing and urban development and education in which its entire function may be phased out or reduced to another agency and government or even the state. SPICER: John (ph), who's here from OMB, is the appropriate person to ask on that. He can -- I know that they've done several briefings on the budget. We could have OMB definitely get back to you on this if you can -- if you can contact him after this. QUESTION: You keep going back to the fact that the president used wiretap in quotes and last night he said it was very important that it was in quotes. But out of the four tweets where he accuses Barack Obama of wiretapping him, he only used quotes in two of them. In two of them he specifically said that he tapped his phones. He didn't use the term wiretapping. And just minutes ago you said it was communications being swept up. So can you definitively say that he still feels like Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower? Or does he feel like it was broadly surveilled? Which is it? 16:07:57 SPICER: Look, he was very clear about this last night. He talked about it as you said. QUESTION: He wasn't clear about it (ph)... SPICER: Yeah, he was. He said that he meant it, he put it in quotes, it was very broad, and so that's what he meant by the use of the term. QUESTION: So was it phone tapping? SPICER: No, it was surveillance and I think we've covered this like 10 times. QUESTION: But it hasn't (ph) -- there's no specific answer what it was. What President Obama do... SPICER: ...I understand that but that's the point of them looking into this, Caitlyn (ph). I think the idea is to look into this, have the House and Senate Intelligence Committees look into this and report back. QUESTION: So I want to follow up on that. If all of this comes out and there's no proof that President Obama had any role in any wiretapping, that there was no wiretapping, will President Trump then offer an apology? 16:08:40 SPICER: I've had this like three times this week and I think the answer is, we're not going to prejudge where the -- where this -- where the outcome of this is. We've got to let the process work its will and then when there's a report that comes out conclusive from there, then we'll be able to comment. But to jump ahead of this process at this point would be inappropriate. QUESTION: Sean for taking questions from a talk radio host right here in Georgia and not in the D.C. swamp. First I have two questions. On the leaks of the president's tax returns and classified information, President Trump campaigned on draining the swamp. The American people then want to know why the FBI Director Comey (ph )and Commissioner (inaudible) have not yet been fired by the Trump Administration. My second question is with regard to, there are many conservatives are really concerned that Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, is leading President Trump down a very wrong (ph) path on healthcare. How do you react to that? 16:09:41 SPICER: Well on the first one, there's no personnel updates with respect to -- with the exception of the ones that I mentioned today. On the second, Donald Trump's not one to be led down a path by anyone. I think he is -- he talked today at the lunch with T Shuck (ph) and Speaker Ryan, he is working hand in glove with -- with the speaker. He talked about it last night. This is a commitment that he has to enacting healthcare. This is a process that he has to -- to enacting healthcare. This is a -- a process that he is committed to, wants to see through because of a goal that he wants to achieve, which is making more patient centric healthcare system that lowers the cost and increases the options. But, he doesn't get led down any paths. He leads very clearly. And I think if you listen to Speaker Ryan today, he's in agreement that there's been a strong partnership between the House, the administration, and I think the Senate so far to make sure that we get this bill done. And that's what our goal's going to be. And that's, you know -- so I would argue that we've actually done a pretty good job of getting that done. Jonathan? QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) to cut the National Institute of Health budget by 19 percent. 16:10:46 It's, as you know, very important part of the government funding medical research. SPICER: Yeah. QUESTION: Budget Director Mulvaney yesterday acknowledged that the private sector can't fill that gap when there are rare diseases. We do need a really robust government presence. The president invited a rare disease patient to his speech to Congress so he could talk about medical innovation and new cures. How do you square those things when you're cutting in -- in our hedge by 19 percent? And many conservatives actually wanted to increase the budget? SPICER: I -- I think Director Mulvaney actually -- somebody asked him during the Q&A period how -- the same question. And ... (CROSSTALK) QUESTION: (Inaudible) that it wouldn't -- my outtake from listening to him yesterday was that it wouldn't (ph) be cut. I mean, I almost (ph) wrote (ph) that. SPICER: But -- but again, there's this assumption in Washington, Jonathan, that if you get less money, it's a cut. And I think that the reality is that in a lot of these there's efficiencies, duplicity, ways to spend money better. And I think if you're wasting a lot of money, that's not a true dollar spent. And I think when you look at the way that Director Mulvaney and the president approached this budget it was can we ask, can we get more with the same dollar, can we find duplicity, can we find efficiencies, can we combine, you know, facilities in some cases at NIH to enhance a better experience? Whereby we actually have an outcome that's reduced savings. But to assume that because you spend a ton of dollars, you're going to get a better outcome - 16:12:12 I mean, with all due respect, you look at the District of Columbia. They spend by far more per capita than any other city in the country on -- on education. And I think they have, you know, tremendous issues that are constantly being dealt with in their education system. So, to assume that just because you throw money at a problem, it somehow magically solves is a very Washington way of looking a -- a budget problem. QUESTION: But they believe ... SPICER: I understand that, and I think a lot of the issues that we're working as the director outlined a couple weeks ago during the pass back process is to work with them to talk to each of these agencies and departments about how to walk through their budget in a way that ensures that they can continue to do the core functions that they want while finding ways to reduce waste, get rid of -- enhance efficiencies, and get rid of duplicity. But that is a very Washington way of looking a problem when you say let's just look at how much we spend as a measure of how much we care, or how much we're going to get done. And I think that the president's been very clear about as to what his priorities on this budget are. And the outcomes that we expect from every dollar that we spend. So, for being in office for 55 days, or 50 some odd days or whatever it's been, we've had a unique ability to go forward so far and make a very strong commitment to enhancing our national security, to protect the country, to keep America safe and its citizens safe, while at the same time, making sure that we don't ask for people to work harder to spend more to Washington -- send more to Washington that gets alternately wasted. 16:13:40 I just don't see how that's showing respect to the American people or the American taxpayer. Especially when so many people are working two sometimes three jobs or, you know, or both parents are working just to -- to -- to get by and pay the mortgage. And we're saying, hey, don't worry, keep sending more money to Washington and we're not going to take the time. But there should be a review of all these agencies. Director Mulvaney was pointing out how many, you know, unauthorized agencies and departments and programs we have throughout the government. If we're going to do that, at some point, there should be a debate on whether or not these agencies and programs are achieving their mission. And if they are, then great, fund them. But if they're not, then we shouldn't be asking hard working American taxpayers to send more money to Washington to fund things that don't further those goals. Thank you, guys, very much. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Take care. Have a good one. (CROSSTALK) END

10:49:45: BROLL GINGRICH INTRODUCED, WALKS TO STAGE, APPLAUSE PODIUM HAS LARGE NEWT 2012 SIGN, BACKGROUND IS NEWT2012 POSTER 10:50:00: Gingrich: "Thank you all very much for that warm welcome, John thank you very much, I want to thank Mayor White for having been so hospitable and I especially want to thank Vivienne Wong and her entire family, they've been just spectacular. I'm delighted to be here. 10:50:19: "You know it's fascinating, everytime I come to the Greenville, Spartanberg area people talk about jobs, they talk about manufacturing, they sort of talk about new companies, they talk about competing on the world market - they talk about exports and that often makes me think...you know if the President would take two days off campaigning and come down here and listen to people, not to give speeches but to listen to people creating the jobs, he might develop in turn a new policy that would be pro-jobs, pro-manufacturing, pro-export policy and it would look an awful lot like what we have at newt.org, but still it would be a good thing for him to do." "This is an area that gets it, you understand that we're in the world market, you understand that manufacturing matters, and you understand that encouraging entrepreneurs and encouraging businesses is the key to full employment so I'm thrilled to be back and to have a chance to talk to you." 10:51:15: "But let me give you a framework for thinking about where we are, and I want to ask you a couple of questions. How many of you would agree that America is significantly on the wrong track right now? Just raise your hand - ok. And how many of you would also agree that even if we win the election that the struggle to get us back on the right track will be real and that many, many elements will oppose these efforts to develop the right policies? Ok. The reason I ask you these questions is because in some ways they explain why I'm running." 10:51:57: "We have two grandchildren, Maggie whose 12 and Robert whose 10 and as I look forward to their lifetime and what they will have as a country it came to me that we were so dramatically on the wrong track that it would take a really large effort to get us back on the right track." ***"Now as I thought about all that, I also want to ask you one other question - how many of you would agree that the problems we face are deeper and bigger than just Barack Obama, and while defeating him is essential it is not adequate by itself to get us back on the right track? It's very important, the reason I say that is, if you say what we really need is a movement that changes the laws, the bureaucracies, the judges, the presidency, the congress, you begin to get some idea how big this is."*** ***"And that's why i tell every audience that I will not ask you to be for me, because if you're for me, you're going to vote and go home and say 'I sure hope Newt does it'. And I don't think any one person can get America back on the right track, what I will do is ask you to be with me. And by with me I mean I want you first of all to agree to stand side by sie with me for the next eight years, reminding the Congress, the Governor, the state legislature, the city council, the Mayor, the county Comissioner, the school board - this is what America has to do to be successful in the 21st century."*** ***10:53:25: "Second I want you to be with me because if we make the scale of change we want to make we're going to make some mistakes, when we make mistakes we need a feedback loop from the citizens saying 'that isn't quite working' or 'the world has changed you better rethink it', or 'here's a better idea'. I don't think 30 smart people can save America, I think 305 million citizens can save America."*** And that requires really thinking about a citizens movement." 10:53:52: "The third difference is if we implement the 10th Amendment and we shrink the Washington bureaucrats and we return power to South Carolina, we have to grow citizens in order to fill the vacuum. And I'm for that but that means I'm coming here as a messenger in a sense for responsibility. Sort of the opposite of old-fashioned pork barrel politics. I'm coming here to say - yes, we're going to have less Washington bureaucracy, but yes we're going to require more citizenship for this country to be successful." 10:54:27: "Now I'm an optimist. And I'm an optimist because over 200 years of experience at inventing a better future. And it is amazing all the things we have done as a country, and how we've done them, and how remarkable they've been. And so, I remember talking with Roger Millerton at one point about the fact that he developed the first air-conditioned textile mill in 1943. Now for those who are now used to air-conditioning and central heat and whatever, it's hard to imagine what life was like. You know it used to actually be an advantage." ***"Air-conditioning in some ways made Washington worse, because in the old days Congress had to leave during the summer. (MILD LAUGHTER) So there's a certain mixed blessing."*** ***"But the truth is without air-conditioning, we wouldn't have Florida."*** "And so just think about how much the world has changed." 10:55:22: "I flew in this morning, you know I always remind people - the Wright brothers were two bicycle mechanics when that was a fairly high-end technology, and they were fascinated by flying. So they studied birds and they thought about it for years, they built their own wind tunnel, they were pretty sophisticated and they asked the US weather service how they could find the place that had the best continuous updraft of wind, because they wanted the wind coming up so that the airplane would have extra lift. And it turned out to be Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And so every year in the summer the Wright brohers would fill up a boxcar with wood. And they would spend the summer trying to fly. And the reason tney took all the extra wood was because they know something really important, which was that they didn't know how to fly. And so they planned on crashing - which they did. They would get up in the morning and fix coffee and they would plan on flying 5 to 6 times a day, it wouldn't work and they'd break some part of the airplane when it crashed. They would go back and try to rethink it, rebuild it a little bit, try it again, and this went on for 3 years." "Finally in December of 1903, they flew for the first time. The first flight, the first powered flight in history was shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 and the one brother ran alongside the plnae to make sure it didn't flip over and kill his brother. In December of 1903 to the summer of 1907, they improved the airplane so rapidly that they flew around the island of Manhattan and a million and a half people saw an airplane for the first time." ***10:57:11: "Now this morning, I got on an airplane, flew in, I will often say to people when we land 'the wright brothers worked again' - we don't think it's a miracle. You know, you go on a long flight, you get served a meal, you watch a movie, you get off the plane, do you say 'wow what a miracle' - no you'd say 'i'd already seen the movie and the food wasn't that good' (LAUGHTER). That's how rapidly we adjust to what we think is progress."*** "Now why am I telling you this? Because I am convinced that if we unleash the American people, we will go back to a generation of progress and it comes at three levels." 10:57:50: "It comes at the level of pragmatism that is what works and what doesn't work, it comes second at a level of principles, and it comes third with a level of values. Let me just briefly give you an illustration." 10:58:03: "Let's start with the world that works and the world that fails. Much but not all the world that works is the private sector, much but not all the world that fails is government but I'm going to give you two specific examples. How many of you have ever gone online to check a package at UPS or Fedex while it was moving? Just raise your hand. So this is a fact right, this not a theory. Very important because in Washington they say 'well Gingrich has a lot of interesting ideas but after all, you have to be practical'. It is a fact that we have technology today that will track packages in motion so inexpensively that you're allowed to do it at no extra cost." ****"So what we have here is the world that works - UPS and Fedex between them have about 24 million packages a day, being tracked while they move." ***10:58:53: "Over here you have the world that fails, the federal government, which cannot currently find 11 million people who are here illegally even if they are sitting still (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE)."**** ***10:59:11: "So one of my proposals is that we send a package to everyone whose here illegally (LAUGHTER) and when it shows up, you track it, and you know where everybody is."*** 10:59:27: "Now let me give you a slightly more practical example: how many of you have ever been called by your credit card company to make sure you were actually charging on the card - that it wasn't somebody else? Raise your hand if this has ever happened. So again this is not a theory, right? ***"American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and IBM have all developed really sophisticated technology which allows real-time verification of identity so that if somebody else steals your card we can track it very fast. In the case of American Express they pay annually .03 of 1% to crooks. This is the world that works."*** ***11:00:04: "The federal government in medicare and medicaid, according to the NY Times study according to NY State medicaid, pays over 10% to crooks. Now when I say crooks I didn't mean some marginal change by doctors, I mean a dentist who filed 982 procedures a day. A dental office in Brooklyn they had somebody standing out front that said 'if you loan us your medicaid card, we'll give you a free dvd player'. The Russian mafia dominating durable medical equipment in Los Angeles. People in Florida who have given up selling cocaine for cheating the government because it's safer and easier and you make more money. These are real cases, so what's the difference between .03 and 10% which means by the way that you are 333 times 33,000% more likely to pay a crook as a taxpayer than you are as a cardholder."*** "What does it come to? Well our estimate and we published a book several years ago at the Center for Health Transmission, we thought the title would work in Washington, the title of the book was 'Stop Paying the Crooks'. Nobody noticed, it's not a topic. It doesn't resonate at all in Washington. So how much is on the table? Between 70 and 120 billion dollars a year in Medicare and Medicaid alone, additional money in food stamps, you go down the list. So instead of having a supercommittee trying to find a trillion, 200 billion. They could have found half to two thirds of it by not paying crooks." "Couldn't get their attention - these ideas just pass Washington by." 11:01:46: "Let me give you an example of the world that works and the world that fails in terms of social security reform. We know as a fact that in Galveston, Texas and in Chile there are personal social security savings accounts, they have been there for over 30 years, and they work. If you allow young people to save from the time they first go to work and have the power of compound interest building up their money for their entire working lifetime, they get between two and three times as much money as they get from the current income transfer program. "Now we know this is true, they get so much money that even in a bad year they get more than social security pays. Both the Galveston program and the Chilean program have a guarantee that the government will pay you the difference. If you end up with less money than the minimum social security payment in Chile, they'll write you a check for the difference. In 30 years they've never written a single check, that's how big the difference is." "Now what does that mean? It means we could go and we're doing this now, we're on 85 campuses now and we'd love to have more, we'd love your help if you know young people who would like to get involved. We have a project Dan Cotton(?) is running for students who would like to have the right to choose a personal social security account. We've entered a proposal for a personal social security account, the social security actuary estimates that 95% of the students would voluntarily take the account because it is so much better than the current system. It not only allows build-up of interest, it also becomes your money which means that if you pass away prematurely you have an estate for your family which you do not have with social security. Social security particularly cheats African-American males, they have the shortest lifespan, they're the most likely to die before retirement, they're the least likely to get the money back. So a personal social security account is a big advantaqe if you're an African-American male. And it's an advantage for their family. It turns out that by letting every single person become an effective capitalist. Everyone ends up with stocks and bonds. Within a generation you've eliminated 50% of the income inequality in the United States. I can't wait for Paul Krugman at the NY Times to come to grips with this. He wants to write about this terrible problem of the gap between the rich and the poor - fine - we're going to bring the poor up. I'm not into leveling down, I'm into leveling up. (APPLAUSE)" 11:04:22: "And I'm not into wealth redistribution, I'm into wealth creation. If every American gets a job and every American rises, and I am determined to apply this principle to the poorest children in the poorest neighborhoods in America. I believe when we wrote the Declaration of Independence and we said we are a nation endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that applies to every American, every South Carolinian, in the poorest county in South Carolina, in the poorest neighborhood, we owe it to them to find ways to help them migrate into jobs. To find jobs that will allow them to save and to give them a chance to pursue happiness fully as much as every American." 11:05:05: "One of my committments in this campaign is to develop a series of conservative solutions to poverty since it's so totally clear that the liberal solutions have only made the problems worse." 11:05:16: "It's a fundamentally different approach. Now I got a little controversy going a week ago because I suggested children could work. And this became this horrifying, liberals were going on TV and 'oh my god Newt believes in child slavery!'. I mean the level of hysteria, not since Daniel Patrick Moynihan has the left reacted with such a level of hysteria." 11:05:38: "Now let me ask you all a question, I've been testing this out with people. How many of you earned some money by the time you were ten? Almost all of you right? think about this right - I was with a young lady the other day who was very successful and her family for three generations has been quite successful, she could do nothing if she wanted. And I said 'when did you start learning how to work?' And she said 'my grandfather would give me money if I would go run errands for him'. I said 'how old were you?', she said 'five'." "One of the people hanging out with me has a son and I think he's six, he wanted to buy a particular toy, and his dad say 'well, if you earn the money' and so he went out and helped his Dad wash the car, he helped his Dad clean up the yard and he actually saved the money and then he learned a new thing - he learned that when you've saved enough money to buy the toy, you couldn't buy the toy because you hadn't saved the sales tax. (CHUCKLES) So then at six years of age, he began learning how to calculate the sales tax because he had to go earn a little bit of extra money because he wasn't quite there. Now this is education in life! This is bringing people into the world of work, the world of prosperity, the world of savings, the world of investments. And we want every young American to have an opportunity to do that. And so I suggested that if you take the cost of the NY City janitors, the most expensive janitors in New York are paid more than the highest paid teachers, an entry-level janitor is paid twice as much as an entry-level teacher. All because of the union!" 11:07:09: "So I said, let's keep two janitors, adults who are professional, they do all the heavy stuff and all the dangerous stuff. Then let's take all the other jobs and divide them up into part-time kids. And you could probably in the average school hire 30 children, and they could work in the front office as a clerk, they could work in the library, they could work in the cafeteria, they could actually clean the floors. They begin to learn A) when you do things, you get money. This is a very important turning point in American life. And if you are too poor in a neighborhood that is too poor, living in a broken home with no role models near you who have the habits, beginning to learn these habits changes the world. And then you start learning you want to learn how to read and write better beacuse you don't want somebody to cheat you because you now have money. And you begin an entire process of learning that is a lifetime experience." 11:08:06: "So I think we have an opportunity, first at the basic level if we migrate to the world that works the people who created 'strong america now' which I recommend all of you google, it's a fasincating site. They believe you could save 500 billion a year with better government operating more effectively." "If we move to the principles level, this'll be one of the great reasons for a debate next year. The fact is our current President is a very sincere believer in Solivensky's (sp?)radicalism. If you watch his speeches they are totally left-wing, radical, class-warfare, bureaucratic socialist speeches. It's a respectable position, it's just wrong." 11:08:46: "I happen to believe in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, Adam Smith, the wealth of nations, the idea of creating jobs. Fundamentally different." "To give you an example of principle, imagine that on the left, they believed that the term hard egg could be achieved by putting it in the freezer. And you came in and you said 'you know I'd like a hard-boiled egg' and they said 'sure, terrific' and they pulled a hard egg out of the freezer and you looked at it and you wondered why it was so cold. It would be hard. that's kind of their approach to job creation. They haven't got a clue." 11:09:22: "Virtually eveything they do is counter-productive. They are anti-entrepeneur, anti-small business. Obamacare alone is killing small business. The Dodd-Frank bill is killing small banks which then kills small business. 42% of the small business loans in America are made by independent banks. You crush the independent banks you're going to crush...so the President is creating all these problems. And I think he has no clue how to get jobs in America." 11:09:48: "By contrast to Ronald Reagan, he understood how to do it. Four things - lower taxes, less regulation, more American energy, and praise the people who create jobs. The President wants higher taxes, more regulation, less American energy, and class warfare. You're never going to craete jobs that way. So on a principled level, I think there's a tremendous difference between what a Gingrich administration would be." 11:10:12: "I captured it in a very simple phrase: 'this is the most effective, food stamp President in American history.' I would like to be the most effective paycheck President in American history." (APPLAUSE) 11:10:30: "That also tells you what the campaign is gonig to be all about. We're going to go into every precinct of every background in this country and we're going to go into every precint in South Carolina and we're going to say very straightforward 'would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks?'. And it would bet you there's not a precinct of any ethnic background anywhere that doesn't have a majority that favors paychecks. So this is going to be the most wide-open campaign. This will be an American campaign." 11:10:56: "I'm not going to try to get just Republican votes. I want every American who agrees with the things I'm describing with you. If you agree that we need to be in the world that works and not the world that fails, you're with us. If you agree that we ought to get paychecks not food stamps, you're with us. Much broader coalition than you've ever seen in your lifetime." 11:11:14: "Finally let's go to core values. I think the essence of this campaign is simple: I believe in American exceptionalism and American exceptionalism starts with the Declaration of Independence which says that we hold these truths to be self-evident, multi-cultural situation ethics absent of any principle is a disaster. This country was founded on an effort by the founding fathers to find the truth. They said the truth was we're all created equal. They then went onto say 'we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' "Very key thing - three parts - one) I believe our rights come from our creator and I believe they are unalienable. That means no judge, no bureaucrat, no politician can take away your rights. What this means is that God personally gives each one of you sovereignty. These are your rights, they're not group rights - they're your rights. You then loan power to the government. The government does not loan power to you. That's why in America you are in citizens, not subjects." "The President believes in a European power, where the government is the center of power, the bureaucrats are in charge and you're merely a subject. Fundamentally alien to the American tradition. And I think it's very important for us to understand that." "The reason we could never allow the United States to be subordinate to an international organization is that no international organization has a center of soveriengty based on the citizens and we are not going to give up our rights as citizens to some multi-national group, half of whom are dictators." (APPLAUSE) 11:13:08: "Now before we go to questions let me just summarize for a second just so that you can understand, what I'm campaigning on is pretty complicated. It's pragmatic, what works and what doesn't, it's principled - free enterprise versus socialism, and it's core values - american exceptionalism versus a european model, very complicated. More than a 30 second attack ad. That's why I will challenge the President to 7 three hour Lincoln-Douglass style debates with a timekeeper but no moderator, and we will concede in advance that he can use a teleprompter (LAUGHS)." 11:13:50: "After all, if you had to defend Obamacare, wouldn't you want a telemprompter?" (LAUGHS) 11:13:57: "Now people say to me, he'll never accept. I have three reasons I just want to share - I have three reasons I think he'll accept: "First: I think he'll accept because he announced in February of 2007 in Springfield quoting Lincoln." "Second: I think he'll accept out of sheer ego - I mean how do you look in the mirror - Columbia graduate, Harvard law school, editor of the law review, greatest orator in the Democratic party - how do you look in the mirror and say to yourself that you're afraid to debate some guy who taught at West Georgia College?" (LAUGHTER) 11:14:36: "But there's a third reason, as most of you know, I study history. And unlike the President, I study American history. (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) 11:14:50: "Abraham Lincoln announces against Senator Stephen Douglass and says 'we have 105 days left in the campaign, why don't we debate everyday?' And Douglass says 'I don't think so'. Now remember Lincoln had been out of office 10 years, he'd served one 2 year term in the US House, he'd been a state legislator before that, but he hadn't been in campaign politics for 10 years - Douglass was the best known Senator in the US and expected to the be the next President. Lincoln then says 'alright, wherever Douglass go, I'll show up the next day' and for about three weeks, Lincoln is chasing Douglass. And Douglass begins to realize that with the cycle of news media in that era, Lincoln's answers are getting more answers than his speeches and so he finally says to Lincoln 'alright I'll agree to debate you'. There were 9 Congressional districts and he said 'I'm not going to go back to the two where you were chasing me but we'll go to the other 7". So that's how they ended up with 7 debates, they were 3 hours each, they were widely covered in the news media all across the country. Lincoln arranged to have them published the following year and they were a major factor in his rise to the Presidency. And I would suggest that from the Federalist papers to today, they are the most important single set of documents on the nature of freedom. It's really a remarkable 21 hours of debate." 11:16:15: "So - if you help me become the nominee, when I have an acceptance speech in Tampa if the President has not yet accepted, I will announce that as of that evening, the White house is my scheduler and wherever he goes I will show up 4 hours later." (LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE) 11:16:42: "And given the nature of the modern media, my guess is that I'll get more coverage rebutting him than he got giving the speech. Now all this only works if I carry the South Carolina primary, and I need your help to carry the South Carolina primary and any of your friends who like what we're doing ask them to go to newt.org, my first name, and sign up. We'd love to have their help - January 21st is going to be a big day and I believe if I win in South Carolina that in fact I will be the nominee so I think you are going to play that important of a role in deciding who gets to go campaign with Barack Obama. And frankly, I think just for the enjoyment of the debates it's worth your working on the campaign." "So let me take questions" 11:17:38: Question: "Mr. Gingrich, I'm very much concerned, we hear the term 'conservative', a number of years ago I read a quote that said 'I care not what men say or write, as long as they can write the definitions.' We find you conditioning yourself as a conservative but does your definition as conservative mean loyalty to our constitution or loyalty to the establishment? In 1994, you positioned yourself as a conservative futurist and you said that 'if we wanted to know what you believed to go no further than a book entitield The Third Wave by Alan Toffler'. I'm really concerned because it causes me wonder at what is meant by 'conservative' because that book describes our story as entering a 'post-industrial phase in which abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, and divorce are perfectly normal, even virtuous'. But especially the letter that was written to our founding parents in that book where Toffler asks or said that 'the system of our government, that you fashioned including the very principles on which you founded it, is increasingly obsolete and hence increasingly if inadvertendly oppressive and dangerous to our welfare. It must be radically changed, a new system of government invented, a democracy for the 21st century'. "You also wrote a quote to another book he wrote concerning the politics of the third wave, what is a conservative sir? I'd like to know" 11:19:08: Gingrich: "Well, those were two different questions, okay?" "The tea party movement is a part of the politics in the 21st century. The ability of people to go on talk radios is part of the politics of the 21st century. The ability to create blogs where you get to be your own person is part of the politics of the 21st century. The day after I became Speaker, I turned on the Thomas system which at no cost to anyone opens up the US House to every American citizen, actually opens up the House worldwide, anybody can go on the world, pull down documents, committee votes, debates, it's part of the 21st century. I was really proud when Bill Archer, the chairman of ways and means, got up and when we introduced our tax bill and he thought Archer was of the old school so he was doing this as a favor to me because he thought this was all just a different world - but he got up and he announced on CSPAN which is part of the p olitics of the 21st century that the bill was being filed and if you went to this point at the Thomas system you could personally download the tax bill with no lobbyist, no trade assocation, it was available to every citizen in this country the minute it was filed. Now that's part of the politics of the 21st century." "I will ask the Congress to put every conference committee on CSPAN and to put every proposal of the conference committe on the internet because it ought to be transparent to you which is the opposite of how they did the stimulus and the opposite of how they did Obamacare, that's part of the politics of the 21st century." ***11:20:35: "About half of what the tofflers' write is brilliant and the other half is goofy, but as a former college teacher, half is a lot, and I urge people to look at it."*** "They have a lot of interesting ideas in 'The Third Wave', part of which is represented right here. They talked about a rising world market, they talked about the ability to export all across the planet. Well I would suggest to you that in a region that has been transformed by, among other things, BMW, it's pretty obvious that the world market matters. The number of new manufacturing facilities you're getting, I cited a study the other day by a Boston consulting group that said South Carolina by 2015 will be a less expensive place to manufacture than any coastal province in China. (APPLAUSE) Now that's an amazing opportunity." ***11:23:21: "I think my record's pretty clear, I'm a constitutional conservative, I helped pass welfare reform which put two out of three people back to work or to school. I am the only Speaker in your lifetime to balance the federal budget for four straight years and pay off 405 billion in debt."*** ***"I believe in a very aggressive, gross-oriented tax policy and helped pass the first tax cut in 13 years and the largest capital gains tax cut in American history. Unemployment dropped to 4.2%. I believe in the work ethic, I also believe in basic patriotism, I am an American nationalist. I have no interest in suborning the United States through any international organization but I am interested in having the United States lead people around the world to a better future, a greater freedom, and more prosperity." (APPLAUSE) 11:22:14: QUESTION: "Newt you're running as a Conservative, but ethanol subsidies for producing fuel ethanol are not part of a conservative agenda and it was reported that in 2009 you were paid 300,000 by the ethanol lobby as a consultant and also it was reported that earlier this year you gave a speech in Iowa where you supported a mandate for the car companies to produce automobiles that would run on 100% ethanol. Would you comment on this please?" 11:22:46: GINGRICH: "First of all, I first voted for ethanol when it was was called gasahol in 1984. And Ronald Reagan signed the bill. I voted for its renewal in 1986 and Reagan signed the bill. I helped it survive in 1998 when the oil industry wanted to kill it and ***"the fact is that I am for all forms of American energy. So I am for the oil and gas industry and I am for developing off-shore the natural gas you have in South Carolina which is probably at least 29 billion dollars of natural gas which would produce high-value jobs and would generate enough revenue to the government where you could then revolutionize the port of Charleston in time to match the opening of a wider and bigger Panama Canal."*** 11:23:27: "But I'm for every form of energy. If you ask me - what I would rather send the next billion dollars to Iran or Iowa, I'm for Iowa. Would I rather send the next billion dollars to Saudi Arabia or to South Dakota, I'm for South Dakota. I'm also for coal, nuclear, wind, solar, I want us to have a surplus of energy so that if the straits of ? are closed by Iran or if this Persian gulf disintegrates we do not go into a global depression. We won the second world war because we could outproduce everybody else on the planet, we need to go back to being the arsenal of democracy which means tremendous increase in manufacturing and a tremendous increase in natural energy and that's my position." ***"I think it's frankly a lot less expensive than having to maintain various and sundry dictators in the Middle East in order to have access to oil and gas and as I said -"**** ***"I'm for oil and gas but I'm also for different kinds of fuel to get America to be the #1 producer of energy in the world."*** (APPLAUSE) 11:24:35: QUESTION: "A few weeks ago, I went before Du power company and I was one of the few people brave enough in politics to stand up against Du (?) power company and tell them that this is not the time to raise rates on people and they are just now beginning to see the light of day." "I think at this point we need to have politicians that represent the people that they represent - how do you feel about that?" ***11:24:58: GINGRICH: "Well in the way that you said it I'm obviously totally for it." (LAUGHTER)*** (NEWT LAUGHS) ***"I mean, you know, even though I have been a college professor and I am capable of saying things that really are indefensible, to stand up here and say 'no I don't think they should represent the people they represent' - that would give my good friends an opportunity for a whole new 30 second attack ad that I don't want them to have."*** "But let me make a deeper point here because you are saying something that is really important. We have to get back to a political system in which elected officials are reminded constantly they are being loaned the power and that they owe it to the people who are loaning them the power to be responsible to them. And that's why its very, very important I think to look into changing the election law. The current election laws have been written in such a way that they actually help the incumbents, particularly at the federal level." "These Senators get elected, they start raising money for 6 straight years, they have a 2500 limit per donation by the time they get 6,8,9 million dollars raised some challenger comes along, unless they're personally rich, it's very, very hard to raise the money." ***11:26:10: "If we had a very simple election law that said you could give as much money as you want after taxes as long as its filed every night on the internet so everybody knows whose funding everybody you would certainly have challengers spring up everywhere. They would have adequate resources. The incumbents would actually have to pay attention, they wouldn't be able to rely on pacts and special interests and the advantages of incumbency."*** ***"And I do think we ought to have a system in which people ought to in fact represent the people who sent them there, they shouldn't represent other interests."*** 11:26:55: Question (IN THICK SOUTHERN DRAWL): "I'm Henry Harrison and I have about 3,000 employees in South Carolina. Vivienne is a very dear friend of mine, Vivienne and Thomas (?) Wong - they know I work both sides of the aisle (LAUGHTER) in the business world I'm in -" Gingrich: "Wait wait - (clutches chest) my heart, the pain, the pain." Question: "Well you probably have too Newt, before. (GINGRICH LAUGHS ALONG WITH AUDIENCE) "Anyway, I have good Democrats I do business with and I have good Republicans I do business with, both of their money spend the same, speaker." (GINGRICH LAUGHS) (WIDE SHOT OF GINGIRCH ON PODIUM AND QUESTIONER IN AUDIENCE, BACK OF QUESTIONER VISIBLE, WHITE BALDING IN SUIT): "But Vivenne she is so enthused over you, she said 'Henry I want you to come down and hear Newt Gingrich.' she said 'You've got to support him.' I said 'Vivienne you know I'm an Independent and I haven't decided yet who I'm going to support but if you want me to come here and hear Speaker Gingrich then I'll be there' - because she's a great leader in South Carolina, she's been recognized by both parties...she gets along with everybody and of course she knows that for you to win South Carolina you've got to have the independent vote, too. And after listening to you and her opinions about you, we're going to get out and work hard for you." (APPLAUSE AND CHEERS) Gingrich: "I thank you" ... 11:28:57: Gingrich: "By the way, I am happy to accept any endorsements anyone would like to make, so feel free to get the microphone if the spirit moves you - we're not going to stop you." "Yes sir?" 11:29:08: "Point 9 of the 21st Century Contract with America is about restoring the proper role of the judiciary which is very important to me. You say that you want to use the delegated powers available to the President and the congress to correct, limit, replace judges who violate the Constitution. I'm not aware of any delegated power which allows us to replace a federal judge and I wonder if you have a new idea about that, would you be willing to support a Constitutional amendment which would expand the grounds for impeachment to include voting or ruling to make a law ordering the legislature to make a law or striking down a law for grounds not written in the Constitution?" 11:29:52: Gingrich: "Actually you don't need a Constitutional amendment to do that. My citations are historic, ***"this is a topic I started working on in 2002 because I was so angry when the 9th Circuit court ruled that one nation under God and the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional."I mean it really to me was such an outrageous anti-religious bigotry that I got reengaged."*** 11:30:15 "I wrote a book called 'Rediscovering God in America,' which is a history text with just outlines, and it became a movie that Callista and I did, where we just take people aroundthe city of Washington, and we say to them, 'How could you possibly believe the modern courts are right?' They're historially alien to the American tradition. And if you read the book or see the movie, you'll see what I'm talking about. So then I got engaged, and the University of Georgia was very generous in allowing me to come and teach a short course. I'm not a lawyer, I'm a historian, and I began looking at this question of rebalancing the judges. And the dean of the Stanford Law School, who's actually a liberal, wrote a very interesting book arguing that the Earl Warren court 1958 assesrtion of supremacy is absolutely anti-constitutional and false, and yet the law schools love it because it makes lawyers powerful, and so the law schools all teach this stuff. And I went back and looked." 11:31:08 "First of all, British judges were the second most cited reason for the American Revolution. The Americans hated the British judges because they were dictatorial agents of the elite. And so that's why you have trial by jury as such a central part of our system. Second, Alexander Hamilton writes in the Federalist Papers the judicial branch is clearly the weakest of the three branches, it will never pick a fight with the two elected branches, because it will always lose it. Third, Jeffersonthen turns that into reality in the Judicial Reform Act of 1802. They abolish 18 out of 35 federal judges. Just eliminate them. That's over half. Several of the judges tried to file a lawsuit claiming it was unconstitutional, and the remaing 17 judges said to them, 'Are you crazy?' If we accept your lawsuit, Jefferson's going to abolish our court." 11:32:12 "Jackson says, when told that the Supreme COurt has ruled that the Bank of the United States is constitutional, that's their opinion. As the President, my opinon is it's not. I'm vetoing it, I don' care... Because the argument was each of the three branches has to interpret the COnstitution. Each of the three branches swears to uphold the Constitition. What do you do ifthey disagree?" 11:32:37 "Jackson also said in the Creek Indian Case, where they said that they couldn't move the Indians,let them enforce it, because he knew they couldn't enforce it, which is a point that Alexander Hamilton had made. He just ignored them, Ok? Now you get to Lincoln. Lincoln, in the first inaugural says the Supreme Court on the Dredd-Scott decision is wrong, it is the law of the case, not the law of the land, and the suggestion taht nine judges could decide the law of the land would mean the end of freedom. He rejects totally the idea that the Supreme COurt can rewrite the Constitution based onJustice Kennedy beingiether on the right or the left this morning. If youhave a court that's four and four. Justice Kennedy is a one-person Constitutional Convention having breakfast with himself. It's an absurdity..." (Inaudible from audience) 11:33:25 "Let me draw a distinction... Because the Supreme Court does exist and is written in the COnstitution, so let me draw the distinctionin a second, but let me just go back... Jefferson, when asked about is the Supreme Court supreme, wrote back, 'That is absurd. That would be an oligrachy.' Lincoln refuses to enforce the Dredd-Scott decision, and, in fact, specifically violates it oevr and over again, and then replaces the court." 11:33:52 "Franklin D. Roosevelt, during wartime... THis is very central to the Supreme COurt's overreach on national security... When Germans land 14 spies, who are suposed to commit espionage... THey're all picked up in about two weeks by the FBI in 1942... Roosevelt calls in his AG ad says, 'They will be tried by military tribunal, and they will be executed within the next three weeks... I will not honor a writ of habeus corpus, and I want you to go over privately and tell the Supreme Court that they wil not issue one. I am the Commander in Chief and we are at war. I'm just giving you background." 11:34:33 "We have a paper, if you go to newt.org, there's an entire paper on this, which Vince Haley was a primary author of... Here's the point of our paper. Judge Berry, who is an anti-religious bigot in San Antonia, who issued a ruling on June 1, that not only could you not pray on graduation, you could not say the word God, you could not say the word invocation, you could not say the word benediction, you could not ask people to stand, you could not ask for a moment of silence, and if any of that was violated, he would put in jail the school superintendent. Well, we have no reason to tolerate federal judges who are bigots. My position is they can either impeach him... All the congress has to do is declare he's unfit for office. You don't have to prove criminal behavior. You can pass a vote taht says this guy is clearly unfit to be a judge, or they can abolish his court. I'd be happy with either outcome." ***11:35:34 "The Supreme Court's different. I think you would have to impeach a Supreme COurt Justice. I don't think that would happen unless they were really outrageous, but I was asked to speak at a seminar in Georgetown Law School three years ago, in front of five sitting Supreme Court justices, and I said to them on the record, you keep pushing anti-religious behavior, and you keep pushing foreign judicial interpretations, and you're gonna have a populist rebellion which is going to shrink the authority of your court beyond your imagination." 11:36:14 Man in audience: "Comment on Matthew Spalding's book 'We Still Hold These Truths'" 11:36:30 Gingrich: "We are pretty immersed in the founding period, we've done severalbooks on it, and we've done a couple movies, 'A City Upon a Hill,' for instance, about it, as well as 'Rediscovering America. It's a fascinating period, and they were colelctively extraordinary people." 11:37:00 Woman in audience: "I don't know why they casn't change a law that just because you're in this country and you have a baby here you are automatically a citizen if you were not a citizen to begin with..." ***11:37:52 Ginrich: "I think there are two different questions. On the question of being born here outsude the law, Sen. Lindsey Graham is actually working on a bill which I think he's goig to introduce as a Constitutional Amendment, and he's really concerned about what he calls birth tourism, where people are actually coming into the US with a visa for the purpose of having a child, who they can then label as an American, and apparently in some cities now it's a substantial tourist industry, and that's clearly not what the 14th amendment implied, and I think it's inaccurate to interpret it that way, so I think you could probably change it by statute, but I think Sen. Graham might wanna introduce an amendment to have that effect." ***11:38:30 "On the other question, which I started up some talk about... I have a very aggressive position onimmigration. First of all, I think we should have absolute control of the border by Jan 1, 2014, and I'm prepared to put in the resources, and I'm pepared to change the law to enable us to get the whole thing completed by Jan 1, 2014." ***11:39:00 "Second, I do believe English should be the official langauge of government. I think it's a unifying factor. Third, I do think people who want to become American citizens should lern American history more thoroughly than they do now, and I also think American students who were born here should learn American history more than they do now." ***11:39:20 "Fourth, I wanna modernize the visa program so if you wanna come and visit, or you wanna come and do business, or you wanna and be a tourist, it's easier and more convenient and we welcome you . If you're undesirable, we don't give you a visa, but the current system is very cumbersome and actually costs us billions of dollars because it discourages people from coming to the US." ***11:39:40 "Fifth, I would make deportation much quicker and much easier. If you belong, for example, to MS13, which is a dangerous and violent gang, belong to MS13 should be grounds for deportation. We should be very tough about criminals being deported immediately. This idea that we go through the entire American civil justice system to eventually some day three years later to get around to doing somethng, by which point this person has disappeared, it's, again, and example of the world that fails, rather than the world that works. I would also give H1 visas to people who graduate from American universities with technical math and sciences degrees. If you go to Clemson and you are prepared to go out as a mathematician or a computer specialist or whatever, and the choice is to have you create a factory here or to have you go back to wherever home is and have you create a factory there, I'd rather have you invent the company here, and create jobs here, rather than have you be a competitor.I think that's a very important... You've been here, you're a good character, you've done well in school, you're an asset to us. You're not a liability." ***11:40:45 "You then get down to a guest worker program, which I think we have to have for economic reasons, and a guest worker program, I think, should be outsourced to American Express, Visa, or Mastercard, so you have somebody who knows how to stop cheating, because if the federal governmnet tries to do it it will be a mess. When you have a guest worker program, you can then have very stiff economic penalties for any comapny which hires people illegally, because, remember, you don't get an illegal worker unless you have an illegal employer. So I think it's very important to do that. You then get down to the final question, where I caused some cotraversy, but I wanaa restate it because I think it's important." ***11:41:20 "Most people who are here illegally should go home. THey don't have any ties here, they're here for economic reasons, they can go home and apply for the guest card and come back as a guest worker, but in fact there's no reason. On the otehr hand, if you've ben here for 20-25 years, and you have been paying taxes, obeying the law, and you canget an American family to sponsor, I'd lik eto set up a citizen review panel, much like the WWII selective service draft boards, where local people are rendering real judgment. If you're married, you have two or three kids, you got a couple grandkids, you belong to a local church, I will just be honest. I don't believe the AMerican people are gonna enforce a rule which breaks up families, tears people out of the community, and forces them to go back home, if they've been obeyng the law for 20 or 25 years. I don't know what the exact date is, but there is some point where you have to say this is a person who's actually... Now, I would not give them citizenship. I would, in fact, allow them to have a residency permnit, and I would allow them to be here and be legal, and we end that process. THere ought to be a penalty charge, because you're right, they came here originally illegaly. They ought to pay a penalty. As a practical matter as a leader, I can't imagine that we would be willing, in effect, to have police go into their house, police go into their church, and the churches would all become sanctuaries.. Which gets me to one last thing." ***11:42:50 "I would cut off all federal aid to any sanctuary city which refused to enforce the law, and on the day that I'm inaugurated, I will sign an execuitive order dropping the lawsuits against South Carolina, Alabama, and Arizona, becaue I think the federal government should be stopping illegal immigration, not stopping the states from enforcing the law, so I can guarantee we'll drop that lawsuit." ****11:43:20 "Anyway, I just wanna close with a veryt simple plea. I need you're help. You can go to newt.org and sign up. THat would be great. If you can write your friends and neighbors, anyone you know, an email, Facebook, Twitter, that would be great. If you have any friends in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida, that would be great. I really appreiate your help. Thank you all very, very much." 11:43:45 Gingrich leaves the stage